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PRESIDENT'S COMMITTEE ON THE ARTS AND THE HUMANITIES
Looking Ahead
Private Sector Giving to the Arts and the Humanities
A Report by Nina Kressner Cobb
Research in this report was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.
Publication was made possible by a grant
from the Texaco Foundation.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction and Summary of Findings 4
Note on Methodology and Sources 6
Section One: Overview of the Private Sector 8
A. Introduction 8
B. Overview, 1994 8
C. Longer-Term Trends 8
D. Beneficiaries of Private Sector Giving 12
Section Two: Funding of the Arts and the Humanities 12
A. Introduction 12
B. Individual Donors and the Arts 12
C. Corporate Donors and the Arts 13
D. Foundation Donors and the Arts and the Humanities 14
Section Three: Relationship Between Private and Public Funding 16
A. Historical Background 16
B. NEA and the Arts 17
C. NEH and the Humanities 21
D. The Institute of Museum Services 30
Section Four: The Role of Tax Policy 31
Conclusion 33
Appendices 34
Bibliography 36
Acknowledgements 38
Introduction
Looking Ahead: Private Sector Giving to the Arts
and the Humanities was written by Nina
Kressner Cobb, a consultant to the Rockefeller
Foundation, and is being released to the public
by the President's Committee on the Arts and
the Humanities with permission of the author
and the Rockefeller Foundation.
This report brings together the findings of
the most recent research on private sector
philanthropy — from individuals, corporations
and foundations — to analyze trends in giving
to the arts and the humanities in the context of
total charitable giving to all causes. In an
attempt to paint one portrait of private giving,
information was compiled from a number of
independent sources which used differing
methodologies. These sources include: The
American Association of Fund-Raising
Counsel, The Foundation Center, Indepen-
dent Sector, The Conference Board, and the
Business Committee for the Arts. Numbers
and trends cited in the summary and the text
come from their research.
The report also discusses the relationship
between private and public sector funding and
assesses the impact of recent cuts in federal
funding to the arts and the humanities on
private sector donors to cultural life in the
United States. These observations are derived
from over 100 interviews and conversations,
and from public testimony, recent studies and
essays on these subjects.
Private sector funding cannot be understood
without looking at public policy and public
sector funding. Since 1965 both funding and
activity in the arts and the humanities across
the U.S. have grown enormously, paralleling
the creation and growth of the National
Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National
Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and
the Institute of Museum Services (IMS). The
funding patterns demonstrate a complex
national cultural structure in which private and
public donor sectors reinforce each other,
funding different pieces and parts, exercising
different priorities within the whole. As one
funder phrases it, the public and private sectors
"operate in synergistic combination."
Just after this report was completed, the U.S.
Congress' House-Senate conference commit-
tee on the Interior Appropriations bill agreed
to cut the National Endowment for the Arts
(NEA) by 39%, the National Endowment for
the Humanities (NEH) by 36% and the
Institute of Museum Services (IMS) by 27%,
thus cutting $133 million of federal support
from the agencies for cultural organizations,
scholars and artists.
Headers should remember that cultural
organizations obtain their revenues from many
sources; private grants, contributions,
memberships and government grants and
payments are part of a complex funding
structure that includes earned income.
Ticket sales, admissions, program ads, and
gift shops are just some of the ways that arts
and humanities organizations earn a
significant part of their annual budgets;
these sources of revenue are not covered in
this report.
SUMMARY OF RESEARCH
i
In 1994, private giving to all nonprofits
totalled an estimated 130 billion dollars, up
3.7% from 1993. This increase kept pace
with inflation, but it did not keep up with
real economic growth.
For the first time since 1986, total giving
has fallen below 2% of Gross Domestic
Product; private charitable giving is not
growing with a stronger U.S. economy.
While the past decade witnessed significant
increases in private giving, in real dollars
both overall giving and giving by individu-
als have stagnated since 1989, and despite
recent increases, have failed to match their
1989 highs. From 1987 to 1994 overall
corporate giving declined in real dollars by
one-sixth (although it may be on the rise.)
Only foundation funding grew consistently,
increasing by 50% from 1984 to 1994.
Over the 30 years between 1964 and 1994,
giving patterns were stable, with an average
45% of charitable giving going to religion,
followed by education, health and human
service sectors. 7.5% of private support in
1994 went to arts and culture, up from 3.2%
in 1964, but still among the lowest benefi-
ciaries of the imj^r fat-pgnrip^,
Individual donors are responsible for the
great majorityof private giving. 87.7% of all
private giving comes from individual gifts
(including bequests), 7.6% from founda-
tions, and 4.7% from corporations. Closer
analysis reveals that the size of donation by
household has declined, and recent data
suggests that the size of contribution to the
arts by donor households has fallen more
rapidly than for other causes.
_An estimated $9.68 billion was contributed
tothe arts, humanities and culture in 1994. /
There are 37,000 foundations of all types in
the U.S. 1,020 of the largest foundations,
which together provided more than b0% of
the~gfahT funds, allocated almost_15% of
thelFdollars ($834 inillion)lo~the~arts and
the humanities in 1993.
of the foundations surveyed for thi
study, with one exception, reported that
they will not be able to increase their
fundrng-rbr the arts and the humanities..
Many foundations predict that there will
be increased competition for funds by
health and human services requests.
Foundation officials observe that the size,
scale and expertise needed for national
planning and strategic funding for the arts
and the humanities are now located at the
two Endowments and the IMS.
The arts and the humanities have very
different funding structures. More funding
is available to the arts from all public and
private sources; the humanities rely more
on higher education, federal funding and a
few foundations. This study does not try
to estimate the extent of the support
provided by colleges and universities,
which employ artists and scholars and
present public programming.
.The Arts:
Intergovernmental funding for the arts,
came to at least $1.1 billion in 1995. Of
this_total, $162 million came from the
NEA; $265.6 million came from state
appropriations through state arts agencies,
and an estimated $650 million was from
direct local government allocations-to
cultural organizations as well as to local arts
councils.
All foundation funding forthe arts and^fche
culture in 1992. the most_E£ceot year for
which there are complete figures, totalled
$1.36 billion.
Most foundation dollars are given locally,
concentrating on the largest, most presti-
gious institutions, often in response to
capital campaigns.
Small, innovative and community-based
arts organizations will lose the most in the
competition for private dollars and
declining public funds.
The totals for individual giving to the arts
and culture mask a worrisome trendj_the__
ohation toThearts per
average size o
contributing household leTTdramatically
berweenT987 and V993. This dgehneX
accompanied bv a similar decrease in
volunteer involvement in the arts.
Statistics on corporate donations are kept
by several sources and are inconsistent.
The 1995 Business Committee for-the Arts
survey reports^ajharp-incfease-tH-eoippe^Eev
To~the arts, from $518 million in
1991 to an all-time high of $875 million in
1994. However, the annual suryey_by^trre
ConterenctTBoard finds thafgiving to the
arts in 1994 among Fortune 1000
companies increased only slightly.
* Corporate giving to the arts is driven
increasingly by marketing and human
resources objectives. In general, corporate
giving is determined by location and
benefit to employees.
* ThHMFiA has h^n thp larges.LHngl''
donor_to the arts since 1976., jNTEA has a
national scope that allows it to study and
influence disciplines, audiences and
distn butionTsygtems .
Foundations observe that NEA grants are
an acknowledgement of merit which
encourage local hinders to contribute to
an organization or project. Other funders
report that they depend upon the
knowledge and judgment of the NEAs
review process.
The Humanities:
Funding for the humanities is not as well
documented as funding for the arts. It is
impossible to identify how much funding
for higher education supports the hu-
manities, nor are there statistics on
individual or corporate giving to the
humanities. Data is limited to the
foundation sector and even that is
incomplete.
* The humanities received only $182.2
million from state and federal sources in
1995 and even less from the private
sector, not including grants to individuals.
* 1993 foundation data show that the
humanities — including funding for
historic preservation and museums —
received only 1.9% of all giving from the
sample of 1,020 foundations, which
provided more than 55% of all foundation
giving.
* Of the eighteen main private sector
supporters of the humanities studied, only
three foundations fund the humanities as a
distinct category. Only the Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation, at $30 million in
support, provides extensive grant-making
in the humanities.
The National Endowment for the
Humanities, at $172 million in 1995, is by
far the largest supporter of the humanities
compared to the private sector and to
other units of government.
Private funders observe that only the
NEH has the mandate to operate on a
national scale and with a systematic
approach to encouraging research and
public participation in the humanities.
Note On Methodology
And Sources
Research for this report proceeded along
three lines. The first, which forms the basis of
Section One, was to assemble data to present a
composite picture of private-giving patterns
among the three donor communities —
individual, corporate, and foundation. The
second, presented in Section Two, was to
determine trends in the patterns of giving to
the arts and humanities by these donors. The
third, the substance of Section Three, was to
evaluate the extent to which funding for the
arts and humanities depends on the interac-
tions between private- and public-sector
funding.
Section One, "Total Giving by the Private
Sector," is based on statistical studies and
surveys that are published annually for each of
these donor communities. The findings in
these diverse publications have not been
brought together in a single study until now,
in part, because the different data bases,
surveys, and statistical studies collect data from
somewhat different universes, often define
terms and base years differently, and use
different methodologies.1 Finally, Section
One serves as a context for the analysis of
funding trends in the arts and humanities,
which is the focus on Section Two.
Section Two, "Funding of the Arts and
Humanities," based on a small subset of the
statistical studies and surveys and scholarly
articles, examines trends in giving to the arts
and humanities from all three donor commu-
nities.
Section Three, "The Relationship between
Private and Public Funding," is based prima-
rily on interviews with private-sector funders
of the arts and humanities. These interviews
were used to determine the response of the
private sector to possible cuts in federal
funding of the arts and humanities. Funders
were asked whether they thought their
priorities would change as a result of decreases
in federal funding; that is, would allocations to
the arts or humanities at their foundations
increase or decrease? The fundraising
experiences of eight state humanities councils
were examined to test the possibility of
privatization. Funding for museums is
included throughout this analysis, even
though the Institute of Museum Services is
not discussed in detail. Finally, funders were
invited to assess the impact that cuts in federal
funds would have on the arts and the humani-
ties.
Foundation officers interviewed by the
author were chosen from Foundation Center
lists of the top 25 arts funders and the top 25
humanities funders. Program officers at
community and corporate foundations were
added in order to achieve greater diversity in
type of foundation and/or location. In
addition, interviews were conducted with
scholars, directors and researchers at such
service organizations as Dance/USA, scholarly
associations, historical societies, umbrella
organizations such as the Federation of State
Humanities Councils and the American
Council of Learned Societies, as well as with
former and current program officers at the
National Endowment for the Humanities and
the National Endowment for the Arts.
Section Four: "The Role of Tax Policy,"
provides a brief description of the principal
elements of federal tax policy that affect
charitable giving and then discusses the degree
to which changes in federal tax law could
have an impact on private giving to the arts
and humanities.
SOURCES
Before proceeding, a word about the
inherent difficulty in using published data on
private-sector giving is appropriate. Directo-
ries, surveys, and sources within each category
of private giving are compiled differently.
The Independent Sector has created a
taxonomy to standardize beneficiary catego-
ries, the National Taxonomy of Exempt
Entities (NTEE).2 The Independent Sector,
the American Association of Fund-Raising
Counsel and AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy,
and the Foundation Center use these catego-
ries in their data collection, surveys, and
statistical analyses on individual and founda-
tion giving. However, there is still a lack of
standardization in methodology and the
sources of underlying data. For example,
some rely on surveys while others use IRS
data. The discrepancies and incompatibilities
are discussed below for each category of
sources. The particular problems of finding
data on funding for the humanities are
elaborated on in Section Three of this report.
See sources below for a more thorough discussion of this point.
Independent Sector is a coalition of over 800 voluntary organizations, foundations, and corporate-giving programs with an interest
in philanthropy.
FOUNDATION SOURCES: The two
major sources on foundation giving are Giving
USA and Foundation Giving: Yearbook of Facts
and Figures on Private, Corporate and Community
Foundations.* These sources provide different
totals for foundation giving for the same year,
in part because Giving USA does not include
corporate foundations in this category, while
Foundation Giving does. Giving USA, for
example, cites the figure $9.91 billion for
foundation giving in 1993; while Foundation
Giving cites $11.1 billion for the same year.4
In addition, Foundation Giving and Tfie Grants
Index are based on IRS data and foundation
reports; whereas Giving USA is an estimate,
based on Foundation Center data, for the
following year.5 It should be noted that when
Foundation Giving provides information about
the grant distribution of the foundation world
as a whole for 1993, it is based on projections
from a sample of 1,020 foundations. That
subset of foundations represents more than
55% of all foundation giving, even though
there were over 37,000 foundations that year.
A further discrepancy appears in the two
sources on foundation giving to the arts,
Foundation Giving and Arts Funding: A Guide
on Foundation and Corporate Grantmaking
Trends. The reporting periods covered in
these two documents differ so that aggregate
figures on arts and culture are different in
each document. Arts Funding compiles grants
according to a true calendar year because it is
a benchmark study; whereas Foundation Giving
is based on a funding year. For example,
Foundation Giving included grants for both late
1992 and 1993 in its 1993 data.
INDIVIDUAL GIVING: The two major
sources on individual giving, Giving USA and
Giving and Volunteering, provide different data
because they use different methodologies to
collect data and they survey different uni-
verses. Giving USA tracks individuals. Giving
and Volunteering is based on households.
Thus, for 1993, Giving USA cites $99.18
billion for individual giving; while the latest
volume of Giving and Volunteering, based on a
survey of about 1,500 representative families,
cites $63 billion for 73 million households.6
The latter survey does not target the very
wealthy who contribute one-third of the
charitable giving. In addition, Giving USA
and Giving and Volunteering use different
methods to measure gifts by those who do
not itemize contributions on their tax returns
(non-itemizers) .
CORPORATE GIVING: The two
principal sources on corporate giving to the
arts — the Conference Board and the Business
Council on the Arts (BCA) — also use
different means of acquiring their data. The
Conference Board surveys its membership,
which is limited to the Fortune 1000. Its
totals are partly an artifact of the number of
members who respond, a number that can
vary considerably from year to year. BCA
surveys a different group of corporations —
most of which are too small to be members of
the Conference Board — and projects the
results of its survey onto the entire universe
of companies with annual revenues of at least
$1,000,000. Giving USA also provides data
on corporate giving to the arts. Its figures are
based on Conference Board surveys and data
from several service organizations.
3 Giving USA is an annual survey of philanthropy published by the American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel and the AAFRC Trust for
Philanthropy. Foundation Giving, based on data in The Grants Index,, is an annual statistical study published by the Foundation Center.
4 Giving USA 1995; Phone conversation with Loren Renz.
5 Giving USA publishes its estimates a year before Foundation Giving, correcting them the following year.
6 Giving and Volunteering in the United Slates: Findings from a National Survey 1994 Edition, Washington, DC, 1 994.
Over the past decade,
private-sector giving
has shown a
disturbing pattern:
from 1984 until 1989,
Giving USA's estimates
of total giving grew
from $108.8 billion to
$132 billion dollars
after adjustment for
inflation. In 1989,
however, this growth
stopped and giving
was only $129.9
billion in 1994.
SECTION ONE:
Total Giving in the Private
Sector
A. INTRODUCTION
The private sector is a universe of diverse
donor communities — individual, foundation,
and corporate — that provided an estimated
$130 billion to a large variety of beneficiary
groups and organizations in 1994.7 Each
donor community operates with a different
set of incentives, goals, and methods and has
an extraordinarily diverse membership. The
foundation world encompasses over 37,000
foundations, including among its ranks large
national and small regional foundations,
foundations run by the family of the donor
and others run by a large professional staff.
Individual givers — who numbered over 100
million in 1994 — include the very wealthy
philanthropist who can, through gifts and
bequests, make hundreds of millions of dollars
available to major cultural institutions, as well
as the blue-collar worker who gives regularly
to his or her church or synagogue, or choral
group.
The recipients of private-sector giving also
are highly varied in size and in type; religious
organizations account for the largest share,
receiving 45% of total giving, almost exclu-
sively from individuals; but health, social
welfare, and educational organizations all
receive a larger share than do arts, culture,
and humanities organizations. Smaller
beneficiary categories also include environ-
mental, social benefit, and international affairs
organizations.
This rest of this section will present an
overview of private-sector giving for 1994,
noting shifts in funding from 1993, an analysis
of longer-term trends within the three donor
communities, and long-term shifts in patterns
of giving to beneficiary groups by each sector.
B. OVERVIEW: 1994
According to Giving USA 1995, total
private-sector giving in 1994 approached an
estimated $130 billion, up 3.7% from the year
before. As Table 1 above illustrates, most of
this (almost 88%) came from individual
donors. Foundation giving was a distant
second, accounting for 7.6% of the total, and
Table 1 :
Overall Giving Patterns in 1 994
Category of
Donor
1994 Gifts
($billions)
%of
total
Individuals
(non-bequests)
105.1
80.9%
Individual (bequests)
8.8
6.8%
Foundations
9.9
7.6%
Corporations
6.1
4.7%
Total
129.9
100%
Source: Giving USA 1995
the remaining 4.7%, came from the corpo-
rate community (including corporate
foundations). s There was a relatively small
increase in individual and foundation giving
from the prior year and a slight decrease in
corporate giving. The inclusion of religious
organizations as recipients exaggerates the
role of individual donors. When the 45% of
total giving that goes to religious organiza-
tions is excluded, the percentage of the
remainder that comes from individuals is
reduced to 77%, with foundations contribut-
ing 14% and corporations 9%.
The overall increase in total giving in 1994
was just sufficient to keep pace with infla-
tion, but did not keep pace with real growth
in the economy. Viewed in the context of
the national economy, total giving actually
declined in 1994, dropping to less than 2% of
Gross Domestic Product for the first time
since 1985. As the longer-term trends
discussed in the next section indicate, there is
no easy correlation between economic
growth and an increase in overall voluntary
giving. The small increase in total giving
from 1993 to 1994 — only .56% on an
inflation-adjusted basis — took place against
the background of a generally strong
performance by the national economy.
C. LONGER-TERM TRENDS WITHIN DONOR
COMMUNITIES.
/. Aggregate Trends.
Over the past decade, private-sector giving
has shown a disturbing pattern; from 1984
until 1989, Giving USA's estimates of total
giving grew from $108.8 billion to $132
billion dollars after adjustment for inflation.''
' All data (or 1 994 comes from Giving USA 1 995.
* Ibid. Individual giving comes primarily in the form of inter vivos giving (that is, gift:
to be 80.9% out of the 87.7%. The remaining 6.8% was in the form of bequests.
' Ibid., pp. 16-17. The inflation adjustment is accomplished by expressing all amounts in 1994 dollars
de while the donor is alive) which, in 1 994, was estimated
Table 2:
Ten-Year Trends in billions of 1994 dollars
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992 1993
1994
Individual
(non-bequest)
89.3
88.1
964
98.6
103.9
108.2
106.5
107.0
104.6 104.3
105.1
Individual
(bequests)
6.4
7.2
8.1
9.0
8.5
8.6
8.9
8.7
8.7 8.8
8.8
Corporate
6.8
7.2
7.3
7.5
7.3
7.1
6.9
6.7
6.3 6.2
6.1
Foundation
6.3
7.4
77
8.0
8.0
8.1
8.5
8.6
9.2 9.8
9.9
Total
108.8
109.9
119.6
123.1
127.7
132.0
130.8
130.9
128.9 129.2
129.9
Annual
Increase in
Total Giving
3.4%
1.0%
8.8%
3.0%
37%
3.4%
-0.9%
0.1%
-1.6% 0.2%
0.6%
Annual
Increase in
GDP
6.2%
3.2%
2.9%
3.1%
3.9%
2.5%
1.2%
-0.7%
3.0% 3.3%
4.1%
Source: Giving USA 1995; Statistical Abstract of the United States.
In 1989, however, this growth stopped and
giving was only $129.9 billion in 1994. As
Table 2 shows, total giving generally kept pace
with the economy for the first part of the
decade, but leveled off while the economy
continued to grow, albeit somewhat sluggishly.
Table 2 also shows that individual giving has
followed the same pattern as total giving —
significant annual increases through 1989 and a
slow decline since. Individual non-bequest
giving, as a percentage of the whole, has been
consistently between 80% and 82% of the total
throughout the decade. Bequests have added
another 6.5% to 7.5% each year.
The patterns for foundation and corporate
giving have diverged. There has been a
substantial and consistent increase in founda-
tion giving, totaling more than 50%, from
1984 to 1994. Corporate giving, on the other
hand, which had almost doubled in the prior
decade, declined steadily after 1985, going
from 6.6% of total giving to 4.7% in 1994.
Over this period, corporate giving decreased
by about one-sixth in real dollars.
2. Trends in Individual Giving.
Notwithstanding the steadfastness of
individual giving as a percentage of total
giving, two recent studies raise significant
concerns about its stability in the future.
Estimates by Independent Sector, in Giving
and Volunteering, 1994, show that among
households surveyed, individual giving and
volunteering have declined sharply since 1989,
although they are up since 1987, the first year
of the survey. In 1993, 73% of all Americans
made some type of charitable contribution, but
the size of the average donation among those
households that contributed was $880, down
1 1% in real dollars from $978 in 1989. The
average income of those Americans who
contributed was $41,350 and they gave 2.1% of
their earnings.
The average annual donation per U.S.
household was $646, down from $734 in 1989.
This decline in the willingness of the average
household to support charitable causes finan-
cially was matched by a similar decline in the
willingness of households to engage in volun-
teer activities on behalf of non-profit organiza-
tions. The percentage of households that did
any volunteer work — which correlates closely
with giving — dropped from 54% to 48% over
this period.1" [See Table 3.]
According to this report, the drop in giving
and volunteering was influenced by a sharp
increase in the percentage of people worried
about their economic futures — a rise from 57%
in 1989 to 73% in 1993. Though contribution
size dropped, the percentage of households
making contributions remained stable. The
study observed that when a substantial propor-
tion of the population is affected by economic
instability, the number of people who make
and Volunteering in the United Slates: Findings from a National Survey 1 994 Edition, Washington, DC,: Independent Sector, 1 994. This
lume study is based on a 1 994 survey of 1 509 households. 89.2 million adults donated 1 9.5 billion hours of volunteer work in 1 993, a
10 Giving
two-volume study
decline of 5% over the last 2 yea
...among households
surveyed, individual
giving and volunteering
have declined sharply
since 1989. In 1993,
73% of all Americans
made some type of
charitable contribution,
but the size of the
average donation among
those households that
contributed was $880,
down 1 1 % in real dollars
from $978 in 1989.
Foundation giving
historically has been
highly concentrated —
with the largest
foundations providing
most of the funding.
In 1 992, there were
35,000 foundations,
but the largest 1 ,000
accounted for
66 2/3% of all
foundation giving,
and the largest 50 for
more than 25%.
Table 3:
Trends in giving and volunteering by household
Year
1987
1989
1991
1993
Percentage of households making charitable
contributions
71.1%
75.1%
72.2%
73.4%
Average household income (in 1993 $)
37,113
39,360
41,222
41,350
Average household contribution for all
US households (in 1993 $)
562
734
649
646
Average household contribution by
contributing households (in 1993 $)
790
978
899
880
Percentage of households volunteering
45.3%
54.4%
51.1%
47.7%
Source: Giving and Volunteering, 1994, vol. I, p. 16.
charitable contributions is not likely to be
affected, but the size of their contribution
is." The most dramatic decline in contribu-
tion size was among households with income
between $40,000 and $50,000, where the
percentage of households contributing
increased slightly from 1991 to 1993, but the
average contribution fell almost 45%, from
$1,038 to $572. 12
A separate study by a group of economists
with the United States Department of the
Treasury, based on income tax data, shows
that there was also a sharp decline in chari-
table giving by upper-income households
from 1979 to 1990. Among taxpayers with
incomes of more than $200,000, the average
contribution declined from $11,104 in 1979
to $8,389 in 1990. For those with income of
more than $1,000,000, Table 4 shows a more
than 50% decline in average giving — from
more than $130,000 in 1979 to less than
$65,000 in 1990. This decline in average
giving is often hidden in statistics about
aggregate giving by upper-income house-
holds because the number of households
earning over $1,000,000 increased dramati-
cally during this period.13
3. Trends in Foundation Giving.
Over the past two decades, foundation
giving has increased steadily. From 1975 to
1992, the value of foundation gifts in
inflation-adjusted dollars has more than
doubled, with one-third of that growth
between 1984-1988 and another third from
1988-1992. This rate of growth has been
consistently greater than the growth of the
economy as a whole.
Foundation giving historically has been
highly concentrated — with the largest
foundations providing most of the funding.
In 1992, there were 35,000 foundations, but
the largest 1,000 accounted for 66 2/3% of all
foundation giving, and the largest 50 for
more than 25%. However, there has been a
trend toward decentralization over the past
two decades. For example, the top 50
foundations accounted for 38% of total
foundation giving in 1975, but only 30% of
the total in 1984. There has been a geo-
graphic decentralization as well. From 1975
to 1992, the proportion of the nation's
foundation assets held in the Northeast and
Midwest declined from 70% to 58%,
reflecting the growth in philanthropy in the
West and Southeast.14 There has also been
great concentration among the recipients of
foundation giving, with a relatively small
number of institutions in a limited number of
geographic areas receiving a disproportionate
share of the funds.
4. Trends in Corporate Giving
Corporate giving to all causes, which was
$6.1 billion in 1994, declined steadily since its
high point of $7.5 billion in 1987. However,
a forthcoming study by the Conference
11 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 4. Because of the nalure of the survey, this data lends not to reflect the giving behavior of high income households, e.g., those with
incomes above $200,000.
12 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 39.
" Income figures are based on 1991 dollars. This data comes from the Treasury Department's Statistics of Income data os described in Auten etal.,
"The Effects of Tax Reform on Charitable Contributions," National Tax Journal, [XLV] p. 275. The data for the median contribution in these
income categories shows a similar decline.
M Loren Renz, "Financing the Non-Profit Sector: Foundation Trends," paper given to Aspen Institute conference, December 5-7, 1994, pp. 2-3.
Table 4:
Deductible contributions by itemizing households with pretax income
of more than $ 1 ,000,000.15
Year
Number of
Households
(000)
Average after-tax
income ($000)
Average
contribution ($000)
Average contribution as
% of after-tax income
1979
18.7
1,829
134
7.3%
1980
18.4
1,649
133
8.0%
1981
20.0
1,722
164
9.6%
1982
24.1
1,968
100
5.1%
1983
31.0
1,931
125
6.5%
1984
30.3
2,137
103
4.8%
1985
35.9
2,016
105
5.2%
1986
63.7
2,522
143
5.7%
1987
47.9
1,782
90
5.1%
1988
77.6
2,065
71
3.4%
1989
66.7
1,987
82
4.1%
1990
64.5
1,701
64
3.8%
Source: Auten et al. All dollar amounts are expressed in 1991 dollars.
Board reports that corporate giving is up for
1994 and will continue to increase by about
3% this year and as much as 5% next year.
The 383 companies that responded to the
Conference Board survey gave a total of
$1,986,130,000—33% of total contributions
by U.S. corporations.16 More significantly,
212 companies that had responded to the
survey both this year and last reported giving
$1.6 billion in 1994, 5.8% more than in
1993. Nonetheless, giving will not reach the
same levels that it had in the 80s when
corporate contributions had more than
doubled on an inflation-adjusted basis.
Corporate giving as a percentage of corporate
pre-tax income decreased from 2.23% in
1986 to 1.32% in 1993 and fell again to less
than 1%.'7
Table 5:
Breakdown of Total Giving by Beneficiary Type.
Year
1964
1974
1984
1994
Total
$72.5 (100%)
$92.1 (100%)
$108.8 (100%)
$129.9 (100%)
Religion
$32.7 (45.2%)
$40.7 (44.1%)
$56.3 (51.7%)
$58.9 (45.3%)
Education
$10.0 (13.6%)
$10.5 (11.4%)
$11.5 (10.6%)
$16.7 (12.9%)
Health
$8.3 (1 1 .4%)
$11.6 (12.6%)
$10.8 (9.9%)
$11.5 (8.9%)
Human Services
$10.2 (14.1%)
$10.4 (11.3%)
$12.5 (11.5%)
$11.7 (9.0%)
Arts/Culture
$2.3 (3.2%)
$4.1 (4.5%)
$7.1 (6.5%)
$9.7 {7.5%)
Public/Society Benefits
$2.1 (2.9%)
$2.3 (2.5%)
$3.1 (2.8%)
$6.1 (4.7%)
Unclassified
$7.0 (9.7%)
$12.6 (13.7%)
$7.6 (7.0%)
$9.6 (11.8%)
Source: Giving USA 1995, all amounts in billions of 1994 dollars.
15 This sludy looked at households with pretax incomes above $1,000,000 (in 1991 dollars)- However, results were expressed in terms of
after-tax income.
16 "Advance Report, Corporate Contributions, 1994," Conference Board. In 1993, the Conference Board reported total giving at $ 1 ,975,41 7,
with 3 1 8 companies answering the survey. Conference Board surveys are conducted among its membership which is limited to the Fortune 1 000.
Total contributions derived from the survey are partly an artifact of the number of companies responding. Thus, the slightly higher total in 1 994
with 383 companies responding is not particularly significant.
17 Ibid.; Giving USA 1994, p. 76.
There also has been
great concentration
among the recipients of
foundation giving, with
a relatively small
number of institutions in
a limited number of
geographic areas
receiving a
disproportionate share
of the funds.
Corporate giving,
which had almost
doubled in the prior
decade, declined
steadily after 1985...
Over this period
[1984-1994] corporate
giving decreased by
about one sixth in
real dollars.
Table 6:
Percentage of households contributing to particular categories of charity
Year
1987
1989
1991
1993
Religion
52.5%
53.2%
51.3%
49.2%
Education
15.1%
19.1%
21.1%
17.5%
Health
23.9%
32.4%
32.9%
25.7%
Human Services
23.9%
23.0%
27.5%
26.7%
Arts & Culture
8.0%
9.6%
9.4%
8.1%
Public/Society Benefit
6.5%
11.2%
11.2%
11.2%
Environment
10.8%
13.4%
16.3%
11.6%
Youth Development
18.5%
21.6%
22.1%
17.9%
Other
9.6%
17.9%
15.9%
16.1%
Total
71.1%
75.1%
72.2%
73.4%
Source: Giving and Volunteering 1994.
D. BENEFICIARIES OF PRIVATE SECTOR
GIVING.
Giving USA identifies the principal
recipients of charitable giving as Religion,
Education, Health, Human Services, Arts
and Culture, Public/Society Benefit and,
since 1987, Environment/Wildlife and
International Affairs. There has been great
stability among beneficiary groups in their
share of the total charitable pie over the last
three decades. Throughout this period,
religious organizations have claimed close to
half of all giving dollars — almost all from
individuals. The other major categories
have also claimed a fairly consistent share.
The principal exceptions have been a
gradual, but steady increase in the share
going to Arts and Culture, from 3.2% to
7.5%; and a steady decline in Human
Services, from 14.1% to 9.0%.
Although the percentage of non-wealthy
households making contributions has been
fairly stable over the past several years, the
percentage of households giving to each
particular category has declined from 1991
to 1993.'8 This appears to be a trend toward
more concentrated giving by individual
households; in other words, fewer house-
holds are making gifts to more than one
category of beneficiaries.
SECTION II: Funding of
the Arts and the Humanities
A. INTRODUCTION
This section discusses private-sector giving
to the arts and humanities. Giving by
individual, corporate, and foundation donors
are discussed for the arts; however, trends for
giving to the humanities are limited to
foundations, because such data has not been
disaggregated for corporatate and individual
donors. (Giving and Volunteering and Giving
USA refer to the humanities, but as part of
an arts, culture, humanities category.)
Despite the fact that data for the arts is far
more extensive than it is for the humanities,
it is still thin about individual giving and
inconclusive for corporate giving. Data on
corporate giving to the arts covers more than
thirty years, but is unsatisfactory because the
two major sources do not agree; information
on individual contributions to the arts only
goes back to 1987.
B. INDIVIDUAL DONORS
According to Giving and Volunteering,
average giving to the arts per contributing
household fell 47% from $260 in 1987 to
$139 in 1993. At the same time, giving to all
causes by this same 8% subset of households
that contribute to the arts increased by 53%.
There was also a steep decline in volunteer
Giving and Volunteering, Vol. II, p 4.
Table 7:
Contributions to the Arts by Households
Year
1987
1989
1991
1993
Percentage of households contributing
to the arts
8.0%
9.6%
9.4%
8.1%
Average contribution to the arts
$260
$193
$194
$139
Average contribution to all charities
$1,376
$2,115
$1,930
$2,101
Average income of households
contributing to the arts
$52,389
$52,929
$59,119
$56,535
Source: Giving and Volunteering, Vol. II, p. 18 (all figures are in 1993 inflation-adjusted dollars)
involvement in the arts.1'' According to a
1993 study, donors to the arts are between
25-64, well-educated, employed full-time,
have an average income of $56,535, and are
more than twice as likely as other donors to
plan to claim charitable deductions, and give
to other causes.2" Table 7 above shows that
between 1987 and 1993 the percentage of
households contributing to the arts rose from
about 8% to 9.6% and then fell back to about
8%. The most important trend, however, is
that the average size of these contributions
declined during those years.21
There are no obvious explanations for this
decline. Although giving patterns of this
group may be quite sensitive to tax policy,
there were no significant alterations in the tax
law that could explain this change in behavior
during this period.22 The income group that
gives to the arts also supports environmental
causes and public/society benefits. Average
contributions to these categories remained
steady — albeit the average gift to both was
much lower than it had been to the arts.23 It
may be that as these households concentrate
their giving in fewer areas, other areas are
taking precedence over the arts.
C. CORPORATE DONORS AND THE ARTS:
The seventies and eighties were decades of
great growth for support of the arts by the
business community. According to an
influential 1963 survey by the Rockefeller
Brothers Fund, fewer than half of American
p. 18.
corporations contributed to the arts. The
study found that "only a small fraction — at
most 3-4% or some $16 to $21 million" — of
corporate giving went to the arts.24 By 1977,
corporate contributions to the arts had
increased fivefold to $100 million, though the
rate of corporate giving to the arts was only
6.5% of corporate giving. In 1987, it had
reached almost 10%.25
During the seventies, most companies
investing in the arts throughout the United
States were doing so for the first time. Arts
organizations of all kinds were recipients of
corporate philanthropy: traditional beneficia-
ries such as the symphony, museums, theater,
and opera, as well as less conventional
recipients such as dance, craft centers,
performing arts facilities, literary arts, and
public radio and TV.2'3 The five-fold increase
in corporate largesse in the eighties was
primarily the result of the economic boom
that increased the rate of corporate giving
from 1% to 2% of pretax net income as well
as the percentage of the total that went to the
arts.
Data for 1991 is quite contradictory; the
Conference Board's annual survey of corpo-
rate support to the arts showed corporate
giving at an all-time high of 12%, while the
Business Committee for the Arts noted a
sharp decline among the companies it
surveyed — both in absolute monetary terms
and in the percentage of total corporate
giving.27 Although the BCA reported that the
19 Giving and Volunteering 1994, Vol.
20 Ibid., pp. 20-22.
21 Ibid., Vol. II, Ch. 2, p. 19.
22 During the period 1987 to 1993, the general pattern of tax law change was toward more liberal rules on charitable deductions and higher
marginal rates. These factors should generally result in more charitable giving rather than less.
23 Giving and Volunteering, Vol. II, p. 78.
24 The Performing Arts: Problems and Prospects^ Rockefeller Panel Report on the future of theatre, dance, music in America. (New York: McGraw
Hill) 1 965, p. 84. This report was a key document in the establishment of the NEA.
25 Giving USA 1 994, p. 20. See Michael Useem, "Trends and Preferences in Corporate Support for the Arts," in Guide to Corporate Giving in the
Arts 4 .edited by Robert Porter, ACA Books, 1 987, p. ix.
26 Judith Jedlicka, Speech at International Mecenat Conference, May 22, 1 995.
27 BCA Triennial Report, 1992.
The five-fold increase
in corporate largesse
in the eighties was
primarily the result of
the economic boom
that increased the rafe
of corporate giving
from l%to 2% of
pretax net income as
well as the percentage
of the total that went
to the arts.
The last several years
have witnessed a
major shift in
corporate giving to the
arts. In the late
eighties, responsibility
for setting policy for
giving to the arts
began to move from
corporate-giving
departments to
marketing,
advertising, public
relations, and human
resources departments
and became much
more market-driven.
percentage of businesses that supported the
arts rose from 35% to 38% between 1988
and 1991, the average portion of their
philanthropic budgets for the arts went down
drastically — from 17% to 11%.2S As a result,
giving to the arts dropped from $634 million
to $518 million.29
The most recent BCA survey, TJie BCA
Report: 1995 National Survey of Business
Support to the Arts, and the forthcoming
Conference Board report for 1994 diverge
again. BCA found that businesses with
annual revenues of $1,000,000 or more gave
over $875,000,000, an all-time high, to the
arts in 1994. Almost half of the 1,000
companies that were surveyed supported the
arts, allocating 19% of their philanthropic
budgets to the area. This represents a
substantial increase over 1991. Almost 75%
of these contributions came from companies
with annual revenues between $1,000,000 —
$50,000,000. In addition, the median
contribution doubled from $1,000 in 1991
to $2,000 in 1994. The forthcoming
Conference Board survey, on the other
hand, finds corporate giving to the arts is up
only slightly among the companies it
surveys. Only civic and community-related
causes showed a greater increase in 1994.
Education continues to receive the largest
share of contributions at 34.8%, but this
represents an 11.9% decrease since 1993.
The last several years have witnessed a
major shift in corporate giving to the arts.
In the late eighties, responsibility for setting
policy for giving to the arts began to move
from corporate-giving departments to
marketing, advertising, public relations, and
human resources departments and became
much more market-driven. A study of 458
major corporations that contributed to the
arts found that corporate donors have
become more concerned with tangible
returns for their contributions. More than
90% of the funders surveyed cited location
within the corporation's areas of operation
and potential benefit to its employees as the
two most important criteria for funding an arts
organization. Artistic merit was of concern to
66% of the donors; publicity (a less tangible
byproduct) was a consideration for 21%.3"
Judith Jedlicka, President of the Business
Committee for the Arts, confirmed that most
of the major companies have radically
changed their philanthropic giving programs.
She observed that traditional philanthropic
categories have been replaced by concerns
that may or may not include the arts. Pro-
grams to help children, which include
reduction of violence and substance abuse, the
expansion of multicultural experiences, and
educational programs, are among the most
heavily supported areas. Current vehicles for
corporate support of the arts include more in-
kind donations and incentives for employees
to attend arts events or to volunteer in arts
organizations.31 The latest BCA Report
shows a decrease for big national tours, public
broadcasting and museum exhibits. Funding
has shifted away from museums, theater, and
symphony orchestras to arts education, united
arts funds, performing arts facilities, opera, and
dance. There is also increased pressure to
fund other areas such as health and human
services.32
D. FOUNDATION DONORS
Foundation giving is only 7.6% of total
private-sector giving, but since the arts are so
heavily dependent on private contributions,
the foundations' funding role is magnified.33
As a result, it is very significant that founda-
tion giving in the arts is generally quite
conservative, despite the diversity of the
sector. According to Paul DiMaggio, the vast
majority of foundation giving is local;
furthermore, support is concentrated on the
largest, most prestigious and artistically
conventional institutions. Support for the arts
is episodic, geographically uneven and often
28 The BCA attempts, through less precise methods than the Conference Board, to estimate the behavior of a larger group of corporations, including
many that are too small to be members of the Conference Board. BCA Report 1 992 included 750 corporations in its survey and then projected
its results onto the universe of companies with annual revenues of at least $1 ,000,000. BCA figures are substantially higher than those put out
by the Conference Board because the Conference Board survey is smaller than that done by BCA and BCA projects its results beyond the sample.
''■'' Michael Useem argues that this decline is the result of leveraged buyouts which radically restructured corporate giving away from the arts and
toward education because it is tied to the labor pool. "Leveraged Buyouts and Corporate Political Action," Socio/ Science Quarterly (Sept.
1994], For every $1 ,000,000 growth in pretax net earnings, an arts organization could anticipate a $2,200 rise in a firm's cultural budget.
Since 1 990, corporate giving has declined until it reached 1 .6% of pretax income. Phone interview with Michael Useem, June 26, 1 995.
'"' Michael Useem, "Corporate Support for Culture and the Arts," in The Cost of Culture: Patterns and Prospects of Private Arts Patronage [ed.
Margaret Jane Wyszomirski and Pat Clubb; New York: ACA Books, I 990] , pp. 45—62.
11 Phone conversation with Judith Jedlicka, June 17, 1995.
32 The BCA Report 1995: 1995 National Survey of Business Support to the Arts, p. 1, American Express, for many years one of the major
corporate funders of museum exhibits, no longer supports travelling exhibits and now funds more theater and historic preservation, areas more
directly tied to the company's business focus on tourism. Interview with Anne Wickham, January 1 8, 1 995.
33 Loren Renz, "The Role of Foundations in Funding the Arts," The Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society (24:1) Spring 1994, p. 57.
According to Hodgkinson and Weitzman, the arts are dependent on private sources for 35% of their financial support — a percentage far more
substantial than the comparable figures for private education at 22% and for health at 3%, The Non-Prolil Almanac 1992-93: Dimensions of the
Independent Sector [San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1992), p. 37.
Table 8:
Foundation Giving to Arts, Culture, and Humanities (ACH) (in millions)
1989
1991
1993
Aggregate giving (Foundation Center sample)
$3,245
$5,000
$6,400
ACH giving (Foundation Center sample)
$454
$683
$834
ACH as % of total
14%
14.1%
14.8%
Humanities giving alone
$35
$44
$50
Humanities as % of total
1.1%
.9%
.9%
Sources: Foundation Giving; Grants Index (1994); (not adjusted for inflation).
goes to large capital campaigns, with only a
small share of the money going to experi-
mental organizations. DiMaggio cited only
three of the major foundations for their
attention to planning, program develop-
ment, and a willingness to support experi-
mental or unconventional programs.34 (See
Appendix II for a listing of the 25 founda-
tions with the largest programs in the arts.)
Over the last decade, arts and culture
(which includes the humanities) has main-
tained a steady share of foundation funding,
ranging from 1 3% to 1 5% of all grant
dollars.35 The period 1989 to 1992 witnessed
increased support for the arts from founda-
tions (up 1 3% in real dollars) , but shrinking
support for the arts from NEA (down 9% in
real dollars) and state arts agencies (down
18% in real dollars).
Between 1983 and 1989, foundation
support for the arts was stable, accounting for
1 in 7 grant dollars and 1 in 6 grants.36 In
the nineties, the arts' share of overall
foundation funding declined from 14% to
12.7% as funding of human services in-
creased.37 There were some significant
changes in funding the different categories of
arts and culture between 1983-1993 as well.
Museum funding grew more than any other
area of the arts. In 1989, museums received
3.7% of total foundation giving, growing to
5.1% in 1993. According to the
Foundation's Center's data, in 1993 the two
categories of museums and the performing
arts accounted for almost 70% of all arts,
culture, and humanities funding, with more
than 50% going to museums. Among
museums, art museums fared best, though
there was a slight shift to history and
science.38 Within the performing arts, music
and theater received the lion's share of
funds — although theater declined. Dance,
however, was on the rise after a long decline.
Comparative figures for humanities
funding are extremely limited. (See Section
Three of this report for a discussion of this
issue.) Table 8 above shows the Arts,
Culture and Humanities (ACH) giving for a
substantial subgroup of foundations over the
past few years.39
Of the $834 million given by this group
for ACH in 1993, only $50 million was
allocated to the humanities.40 This figure
represents .9% of total giving by the founda-
tions in the sample and about 6% of their
ACH funding. However, this tabulation
does not include history museums, historic
preservation and centennials as part of the
humanities. If they are so included,
appropriations to the humanities more than
double to slightly more than $100 million,
or 1.9% of all giving by the sampled
foundations. Note that since 1989, ACH
funding by this group has gone down —
from 1.1% to .9%.
Some comparative data on the funding of
humanities disciplines is available. From
1991 to 1993, only two areas of the humani-
34 Paul DiMaggio, "Support for the Arts from Independent Foundations," Nonprofit Enterprise in the Arts: Studies in Mission and Constraint
(New York, 1986), p. 114, 134-36; see also Kenneth Goody, "The Funding of the Arts in the United States," Report to the Rockefeller
Foundation, 1 983.
35 Renz, Executive Summary of Arts Funding Revisited: An Update on Foundation Trends in the 1 990's, p. 1
36 Renz, "The Role of Foundations ...," p. 59.
37 Renz, Executive Summary of Arts Funding Revisited..., p. 1. Data for arts and culture before ) 992 comes from Nathan Webber and Loren Renz,
Arts Funding: A Report on Foundation and Corporate Granlmaking Trends [New York: Foundation Center, 1 993],
38 Loren Renz, Arts Funding Revisited: An Update on Foundation Trends in the 1990s [New York: Foundation Center, 1995].
39 The Foundation Center included 596 foundations in its 1989 sample; it included 832 foundations in 1991 and 1020 foundations in 1993. The
1 99 1 and 1 993 samples represent over 50% of foundation giving and include the largest foundations. The number of foundations has been
enlarged each year to make the sample more representative. (No grants of less than $10,000 were taken into account.) Figures come from
Foundation Giving 1994.
40 The humanities are defined as art history, history and archaeology, literature, classical languages, foreign languages, philosophy and ethics, and
theology and religion.
The vast majority of
foundation giving is
local; support is
concentrated on the
largest most
prestigious and
artistically
conventional
institutions.
From the beginning,
federal funding of the
arts and humanities
through the NEA and
NEH was a
partnership with
private donors and
foundations.
ties, general humanities and literature,
received an increase in funding. Allocations
to general humanities rose from $15,548,567
(74 grants) to $24,103,518 (100 grants); while
funding for literature rose from $9,794,636
(96 grants) to $14,760,779 (123 grants).
There were severe dips in support for art
history, classical languages, history /archaeol-
ogy, philosophy/ethics, and theology/
comparative religion. For example, funding
for classical languages dropped from $300,000
to $60,000; for philosophy and ethics from
$2,569,718 to $784,614.41
SECTION III:
Relationship Between
Private and Public Funding
of the Arts and Humanities:
A. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Historically the private sector was respon-
sible for the establishment of most of the
enduring cultural institutions in the United
States. In the nineteenth century, public-
spirited individuals took the lead in founding
opera houses, symphonies, museums and
libraries. Foundations became their first
institutional partners when the Carnegie
Corporation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and
a few other private foundations inaugurated
programs to support the arts in the 1920s. In
1957, the Ford Foundation embarked on an
unprecedented funding effort to develop the
arts by establishing not-for-profit theaters,
orchestras, and dance and opera companies
across the country.
Widespread corporate sponsorship of the
arts came later than foundation support,
beginning in earnest with the establishment of
the Business Committee for the Arts in 1967.
Chevron's sponsorship of the arts goes back to
1926. Other pioneers included AT&T,
Hallmark Cards, Texaco, Chase Manhattan,
Corning Glass, and Philip Morris.42
Instances of direct federal support to the arts
and humanities do not abound before the
formation of the NEA, the NEH and the
Institute of Museum Services. However,
significant emergency or one-time efforts
include the building and decoration of the
nation's capitol; the founding of the Library of
Congress in 1800 and of the Smithsonian
Institution in 1846; and the Depression-era
WPA arts programs that provided employment
to writers, playwrights, artists, and actors.
Ongoing federal support to the arts and the
humanities has come from indirect subsidies
such as tax policy, postal rates, copyright law,
and international cultural exchanges. Of these,
tax policy has been most significant. (New
policy alternatives are discussed in the final
section of this report.)
Direct federal support to the arts and
humanities was institutionalized on an ongoing
basis when the National Foundation on the
Arts and Humanities Act, which established
the NEA and the NEH, was passed in 1965.
Together with the Institute of Museum
Services (IMS), established in 1976, these
agencies have provided funding on a competi-
tive basis to the nation's artistic, cultural and
humanities institutions and to individual
scholars and artists. In 1995, NEA's allocation
was $162 million, while NEH's was $172
million: both less than they were 10 years ago
when adjusted for inflation. The fiscal year
1995 budget for the IMS was approximately
$28.7 million.43 For fiscal 1996, Congress cut
NEA to $99.5 million, NEH to $110 million
and IMS to $21 million.
In addition, some 200 arts and humanities
programs or activities scattered throughout
various departments and agencies of the federal
government received between $838 million to
$1.1 billion in appropriations in FY 1995. In
total, this represents between .05% and .07% of
the fiscal year 1995 federal budget of $1,564
trillion. This includes $362,700,000 to the
Smithsonian Institution, by far the largest
allocation, though much of this figure is not
for the arts or humanities. Major funding,
$56,900,000, was appropriated for the National
Gallery. Other programs include those run by
the Department of Education, the U.S. Park
Service, the Library of Congress, the National
Archives, the USIA, the GSA and the Interior
Department's economic development program
to help native American arts and crafts. The
$334 million appropriation to the NEA and
NEH for 1995 constituted less than one-third
41 The data for 1991 appeared in an article by Jeffrey Thomas, "The Numbers Game: Philanthropic Foundations Give Record $9.2 Billion," Humani-
ties, January/February 1 994, pp. 42-43, Data for 1 993 was developed by the Foundation Center for the Rockefeller Foundation, using the same
criteria as Jeffrey Thomas has used.
" Phone interview with Judith Jedlicka, July 1 7, 1 995. Speech by Judith Jedlicka at International Mecenal Conference '95, May 22, 1 995. In the
introduction to the first ACA guide to corporate giving ( 1 978] , G. A. McClellan, president of the Business Committee for the Arts, asserted that such
a guide could not have been written 10 years ago because so few corporations were supporting the arts. See Michael Useem, "Trends and
Preferences ...," p. ix,
" Memo from John Hammer, National Humanities Alliance, August 2, 1995.
of total direct federal spending for the arts and
humanities and less than the allocation to the
Smithsonian Institution alone.44
From the beginning, federal funding of the
arts and humanities through the NEA and
NEH was a partnership with private donors
and foundations. This is both by legislative
design and an artifact of chronology. The
federal government entered the funding arena
late, and legislation was framed to maintain
the primacy of private and local support, an
objective that is clearly stated in the preamble
to the law and supported by the funding
structure.43 Of the many billions in private
giving to arts and humanities each year, there
is good reason to believe that most of it goes
to the arts. This certainly is true for the
foundation sector; of the $834 million given
to the arts, culture, and humanities in 1993,
only $50 million is identified as going to the
humanities. (This figure excludes funding of
higher education that does not have the
humanities as a primary objective.) A similar
pattern prevails when we look at intergovern-
mental funding of these two spheres.
Since 1965, "an extensive intergovernmen-
tal system of administering support for the arts
and for distributing artistic benefits to the
public has evolved" notes Margaret
Wyszomirski, an arts policy analyst and
former head of Policy and Planning at the
NEA.46 The intergovernmental system for
the arts includes 50 state arts councils and 6
special jurisdictions, 6 regional arts organiza-
tions, and 3,800 local and community arts
organizations. Altogether, intergovernmental
funding for the arts is close to $1.1 billion for
1995 — with state appropriations of $259.5
million and local governments contributing
$650 million. The state and local numbers
include direct funding to cultural institutions
as well as to state and local arts councils.
The humanities have a much smaller
federal-state partnership structure. There are
50 state humanities councils and 6 humanities
councils for special jurisdictions that receive
almost all their funding from NEH. There is
at least one local humanities commission, the
Montgomery County(MD) Commission on
the Humanities, with funding of $38,000 for
the current fiscal year.47 The state humanities
councils are independent 501(c)(3) organiza-
tions, not state agencies; whereas the state arts
councils are state agencies with the level of
state budgetary support discussed above. In
1995, the state humanities councils received
$26,952,000 outright from NEH. Another
$4,530,000 was available for all 56 state
humanities councils from NEH on a match-
ing basis as state councils raised funds from
private and other public sources. According
to a report of the Federation of State Hu-
manities Councils, funds from private, state
and other sources amounted to
$10,168,125 — more than doubling the
required match — but bringing the total
funding of the humanities through federal,
state, and local humanities councils to only
$182,206,125.48
B. NEA AND THE ARTS
/. Background and History.
The NEA has nurtured the growth of
cultural institutions that serve both the nation
and the needs of local communities. Since
1966, the number of professional orchestras
increased from 110 to 230, non-profit
theaters proliferated from 56 to 425; dance
companies grew from 37 to 450, opera
companies multiplied from 27 to 120, and
local arts councils grew from 500 to 3,800.49
Though the NEA was not directly respon-
sible for the exponential growth in the
number of these arts organizations, there can
be little doubt that it was a catalyst. John
Urice, a specialist on the state arts agencies,
states that "all the literature on the formative
stages of state arts agencies cites the essential
role and stimulus of the federal govern-
ment. "50 In 1993, the most recent year for
which comparable data is available, state arts
agencies expended $29.8 million in NEA
44 Susan Boren, "Arts and Humanities: Funding and Reauthorization in the 104th Congress," CRS Report for Congress, June 22, 1995, pp 2, 3,
10.
45 Wyszomirski and Mulcahy, "The Organization of Public Support for the Arts," in America's Commitment to Culture: Government and the Arts
(Boulder, Co.: Westview Press, 1995) p. 137.
46 Wyszomirski, op. eft, p. 132.
47 Phone Interview with Minna Davidson, Legislative Analyst for the Montgomery County Council, August 1 0, 1 995.
48 1995 Staff Salary and Council Income Report, Federation of State Humanities Councils, #7-95, p. 21. Once again, data on the amount of
money raised by the state councils is not available in any one source. NEH keeps the information only insofar as a state council makes its match.
The Federation of State Humanities Councils provides a profile of the average state humanities council which includes money above the amount
of the NEH match. See p. 32 for the profile.
49 Wyszomirski, og. cit., p. 137.
0 "The Future of the State Arts Agency Movement in the 1990s: Decline and Effect," The journal of Arts Management, Law and Society (spring
1 992) 22:1, p. 21. Five state arts councils predated NEA legislation — New York, Utah, Georgia, North Carolina, and Puerto Rico. The 1 2
councils that were established in 1965 — Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio,
Oklahoma, Texas and Vermont — were certainly influenced by the proposal and drafting of the federal legislation.
Interviews with a
variety of foundation
officers and
governmental funders
make clear that,
notwithstanding the
cliche that the
foundation sector is the
laboratory for
innovation while
government clones its
successes, NEA has
been an innovator in
funding the arts.
"The NEA changed the
arts environment
completely. It was the
major catalyst in
decentralizing the
arts."
regrants and $149.4 million in state funds, a
total of $179.2 million. This combined
investment of federal and state money helped
to stimulate further giving in the form of
matching funds, local government support,
earned income, private contributions, and
corporate sponsorships, thus contributing
significantly to a final sum of over $4 billion.51
More important than numerical growth is
the geographic dispersal in the arts that has
taken place as a result of this support. Says
Holly Sidford, of the Lila Wallace-Readers
Digest Fund, the largest private donor to the
arts and culture, which in 1994 paid out $43.5
million in grants, "The NEA changed the arts
environment completely. It was the major
catalyst in decentralizing the arts." She views
the NEA as very significant in ensuring broad
access to the arts.
Interviews with a variety of foundation
officers and governmental hinders make clear
that, notwithstanding the cliche that the
foundation sector is the laboratory for
innovation while government clones its
successes, NEA has been an innovator in
funding the arts. Paul DiMaggio notes that
while NEA leadership has been responsive in
allocating funds, it has also been creative in
identifying and meeting the needs of a field.32
Says Robert Crane, vice president of the Joyce
Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, "NEA took more
risks. NEA money has been important money
in putting institutions on the map. Many
small to mid-size theater companies have cut
their teeth on NEA money."33 Gayle Mor-
gan, at the Mary Flagler Cary Foundation, a
hinder of contemporary music, agrees.54 On
the other hand, Nick Rabkin at the MacArthur
Foundation believes that when NEA broke
new ground, it was due to public pressure,
principally from diverse artists in the field."
National scope combined with concentrated
resources are factors responsible for NEA's
ability to influence the field and to support
innovation. Though foundation funding for
the arts reached an estimated $1.36 billion in
1992, that funding is an aggregate that is
divided among several thousand foundations.36
Of these foundations, few have sufficient staff,
money, expertise, or access to information for
long-range planning or innovation. In his
testimony to the Independent Commission
on the National Endowment to the Arts in
1990, the late MacNeil Lowry, the architect
of the Ford Foundation's arts policy in the
1960s, noted, "The requisite size that allows
for long-range planning is no longer located
at foundations, but at the NEA which since
1976 has become the single largest source of
annual funding of the arts." Thus, NEA's
significance far outweighs its $162 million
budget for 1995. (Note: NEA's. fiscal 96
budget was cut to $99.5 million by Congress,
a 39% reduction.)
The NEA has forged partnerships with
foundations and state arts councils, among
other organizations, to accomplish its goals.
In 1992, the latest year for which there are
comparable figures from the foundation
sector, combined federal and state funding to
the arts reached approximately $368 million.57
Though this represented only one-third of
foundation giving to the arts and culture that
year, funders and scholars agree that the staff
at NEA constitutes a national knowledge
bank on the condition of arts disciplines
across the country and their myriad arts
groups and organizations.38 This unparalleled
level of expertise equips them to perform
more systematically and strategically. Says
Richard Mittenthal, former Executive
Director of the New York Community Trust
and now a partner at the Conservation
Company, "If I were limited to one call per
grant investigation, I would probably try to
contact the NEA." Once again Lowry:
"Strategies for growth and change, once
better done by the private sector, are now
equally dependent on public funding."
Cynthia Gehrig of the Jerome Foundation
puts it most succinctly, "What we now have
is a system that operates in synergistic
combination. There are many instances of
public cajoling, promoting, and encouraging
private support for the arts — particularly in
the form of start up funding for new organi-
zations or artists that resulted in public
support. Private funding has been strength-
A memo from Kelly Barsdote, NASAA, May 30, 1 995. This ralio is derived by including all forms of income of the relevant organizations.
Paul DiMaggio, "Decentralization of Arts Funding," in Stephen Benedict, Public Money and the Muse: Essays on Government Funding for the Arts
[New York: Norton, 1991] pp. 249-250.
Phone interview, June 1 3, 1995.
Phone Interview, June 8, 1 995.
Phone interview, June 6, 1 995.
Renz, "The Arts Funding Update: A Preliminary Report," draft, pp. 1,2.
Ibid, Of this $368 million, the states' share was approximately $2 1 3 million and the remainder was from NEA.
Paul DiMaggio, "Support for the Arts from Independent Foundations," in Nonprofit Enterprise in the Arts: Studies in Mission and Constraint (New
York, 1986]) , p. 1 34. See also testimony by Marian Godfrey of the Pew Charitable Trusts to the President's Committee, p. 2 (January 25,
1995). Telephone interview with Suzanne Sato, June 8, 1995.
1 All the quotes in this paragraph are from testimony before the Independent Commission in 1990.
ened by public support." 59
In recent years, public policy analysts have
focused on the unintended consequences of
government programs. An unexpected
outcome of the NEA system that foundation
officers in the arts frequently mentioned was
the creation of a national dialogue about the
arts. Holly Sidford observed that in bringing
people from all over the country together to
serve on peer review panels, knowledge
about a field or discipline is effectively
disseminated. For example, theater people in
Whitesburg, Kentucky have the chance to
talk to their counterparts from Los Angeles.
As a result, they all learn about the best
practices in the field. Ben Cameron of the
Dayton-Hudson Foundation, which disburses
about $2,800,000 to the arts, primarily in the
Twin Cities, regards the site-report system
and peer review as extremely important for
learning about organizations and developing a
national perspective. The shared awareness of
common issues among professionals brings
candor to discussions that is often missing
when a grantee meets one-on-one with
a funder.
Most important, in addition to its ability to
provide for the systematic and strategic
growth and diffusion of the arts on a nation-
wide scale, the NEA has the charge to do so.
As a result, many NEA programs have
influenced an entire field. Nowhere has this
been more obvious than in the Dance
Program. The Dance Touring program,
according to Bonnie Brooks at Dance/USA,
was the lifeblood of almost every dance
company in the country. Because dance
companies can perform for only a brief season
in their home communities, they are depen-
dent on touring for their livelihoods and for
audience development. The Dance Touring
program, which was solely funded by NEA,
offered incentives to presenters in the form of
reduced fees to put on performances.
Another highly influential NEA initiative was
the Awards for Visual Artists program,
partnered with the Rockefeller Foundation
and the Equitable Foundation, which opened
museum doors to exhibits by living artists.
This program was a progenitor for the
Rockefeller Foundation's Understanding
Cultures through Museums program that
distributes $1,000,000 in grant money
annually. Other examples of NEA programs
that have shaped entire fields would include
the linkage of opera and musical theater,
assistance to ongoing theater ensembles, and
the advancement of folk arts.
2. Impact of NEA onfunders and communities.
An important indicator of the catalytic role
that NEA plays is the degree to which prior
or contemporaneous NEA support of a
program is taken into account by private
funders in evaluating applications for funding.
Most program officers at foundations with
arts programs view the receipt of an NEA
grant as a sign that an organization has
attained a level of sound organizational
structure and/or artistic excellence. Neal
Cuthbert of the McKnight Foundation,
which contributes $6,000,000 to arts organi-
zations throughout Minnesota, said that the
national recognition that an NEA grant
confers is very important to a local founda-
tion. It indicates that an organization has
attained a national standard of excellence and
reached an important developmental stage —
one characterized by sophistication and
self-consciousness.""
Marian Godfrey of the Pew Charitable
Trusts views NEA funding as a force that
establishes national standards of artistic and
programmatic excellence to inform and guide
other support; she agrees that its national
imprimatur leverages support from the private
sector.01 To Holly Sidford, at the Lila
Wallace-Readers Digest Fund, NEA recogni-
tion is also significant. At the very least,
other funders say they look for an NEA grant
as evidence that an organization has done its
fund-raising thoroughly by approaching both
private and public funders.
In addition, program officers at local and
national foundations talk about their reassur-
ance when making decisions to fund appli-
cants that have received an NEA grant.
National funders like Suzanne Sato, until
recently a program officer with responsibility
for the arts at the Rockefeller Foundation and
now at the AT & T Foundation, stated,
"When it's an organization I don't know, I
feel I have to take another look. NEA
funding is reassuring. It doesn't influence my
decision, but it makes it easier to make the
grant."''2 Ben Cameron at Dayton-Hudson
60 Phone interview, June 7, 1 995. His statement was echoed by Robert Crane of the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundatic
41 Testimony to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, January 25, 1995.
62 Phone Interview, June 8, 1995.
Phone interview, June 1995.
Most program officers
at foundations with
arts programs view
the receipt of an NEA
grant as a sign that an
organization has
attained a level of
sound organizational
structure and/or
artistic excellence.
The arts are in trouble
in New York City
because funds are
eroding at every level.
For example, New York
State Council on the
Arts support has
dropped more than
50% in three years;
from $59,000,000 in
1991 to $29,000,000 in
1994.
confirms that he too takes another look at an
applicant that has received NEA funding.
John Orders of the Irvine Foundation, which
dispenses $3,500,000 to arts organization in
California, says that an NEA grant has been
one more check that makes a funder feel
reassured about an organization's future.
All program officers interviewed for this
report view NEA Challenge Grants as
effective vehicles for leveraging money.
Again John Orders: "Irvine is positively
influenced by an NEA Challenge Grant.
We can then help to complete the end of the
process." Penelope McPhee, at the Knight
Foundation with an arts budget of
$7,000,000, also pays attention to NEA
Challenge Grants. According to Jane Stern
at the New York Community Trust:
"Challenge Grants are a factor. We have
limited resources. We're always making
choices about how to make our money most
useful. I always use it as part of my argument
about why we should fund this program at
this time."63 Like other community founda-
tions, the New York Community Trust,
which is the largest of its kind, is donor-
driven or donor-advised. As a result, 75% of
the funding goes to the major institutions in
New York City. Smaller, community-based
organizations are eligible only for the
remaining 25%, making the competition
difficult.
3. Effects of the decline of federal and state
funding onfunders and their communities.
Every funder interviewed, with the
exception of the Ford Foundation, reported
that their foundations are not in a position to
increase their arts and culture portfolios.
Ernest Gutierrez, of the Kresge Foundation
in Michigan, argued that it is absurd to think
that the philanthropic sector can fill the
funding gap. Program officers at Lila
Wallace Readers Digest, Pew, Rockefeller
and Ford noted that each national foundation
has a mission, set years in advance.
Funders differed on whether their arts and
culture portfolios would be able to maintain
current levels of funding. Penelope McPhee
expects arts funding to stay stable at Knight,
but not to increase; but Deena Epstein, at
Cleveland's Gund Foundation, which gave
$2,200,000 to the arts in 1994, is worried.
Says Epstein, "There's a commitment to
continue arts contributions in the greater
Cleveland area at this family foundation."64
But Cleveland receives significant NEA
funding, she reported. Epstein spoke, for
example, of an alternative gallery in Cleve-
land with a bare bones budget of $230,000.
The Gund Foundation contributes $24,000,
as does NEA; but Gund will not be able to
make up the difference if NEA funding is cut
or eliminated.
Kelly Ambrose at the conservative Bradley
Foundation in Milwaukee sees the loss of
NEA funding as an opportunity, but concedes
that arts organizations in Milwaukee will be
hit hard. The Bradley Foundation will not be
able to increase its support; indeed it will
have to cut back its funding to the arts
because of internal exigencies. To make up
for these losses, the Bradley Foundation plans
to start an initiative to foster the notion of
patronage in Milwaukee. Ben Cameron says
Dayton-Hudson will stay the course, but it
will not be able to fill the void left by NEA
funding cuts because of its commitment to
social action.
Several program officers thought that
federal cutbacks to social welfare would make
it exceedingly hard even to hold the line on
arts funding. Neal Cuthbert at the McKnight
Foundation feared that cuts in federal support
to human services would lead to choices
between the arts and human services at his
foundation. He observed that because NEA
gave Minnesota organizations substantial
support, the first wave of cuts at NEA had a
destabilizing impact on Minnesota's economy
and on its arts institutions in particular.
Similarly, Marian Godfrey testified that the
Pew Charitable Trust was experiencing
increased pressure from applications in the
area of health, human services, education,
environment, and religion. Alison Bernstein,
Director of the Education and Culture
Program at the Ford Foundation, did not
think that the Ford Foundation would trade
off across these sectors. She noted that while
the Ford Foundation does not generally
modify its appropriations in response to
external stimuli, Ford would probably go into
special reserves rather than cut back on the
arts should the trustees decide to take
emergency measures to increase funding in
" Phone Interviews, June 7, 1995.
u Phone Interview, June 7, 1 995.
the social sphere, an option that few other
foundations could afford.65
The arts are likely to be hard hit at
community foundations, a sector of the
foundation universe that is most responsive to
external stimuli.6'1 For example, Jane Stern
reports that funding for the arts went down
dramatically at New York Community Trust
because certain special funds were no longer
available. She also fears that the arts are in
trouble in New York City because public
funds are eroding at every level. For
example, New York State Council on the
Arts support has dropped more than 50% in
three years; from $59,000,000 in 1991 to
$29,000,000 in 1994. "There's too much
pressure from other areas. It creates real
tension to continue our funding in the arts
under the current climate. You can do some
creative programs on the cheap; but you
can't run a youth service program that way.
If you don't have enough people, you have
to close down." She added that NEA
provides capacity-building grants that would
not be taken up by other funders. The
president of the Santa Clara Community
Foundation, Peter Hero, on the other hand,
thinks that funding for the arts will remain
stable at his foundation.
Some funders predict a shift in strategy
rather than a decline in funding. John
Orders at the Irvine Foundation reports that
his board had already decided to be more
strategic by giving fewer, bigger, and longer-
term grants. In addition, they now fund
more service organizations because these
organizations affect organizations throughout
the region across the country at the same
time. Orders and others expect NEA cuts to
have a drastic effect on individual artists.
Marian Godfrey, Bob Crane, and others fear
for the small community-based arts organiza-
tion. A loss to these groups of even 3% to
5% means cutting programs and staff.67 A
recent study prepared for a consortium of arts
funders confirms that this will be particularly
true for minority arts organizations in New
York City.68
C. NEH AND THE HUMANITIES
1. Background.
Direct support of the humanities is more
likely to come from public rather than private
funds. In 1993 NEH funding for the humani-
ties was $172.4 million, compared to slightly
more than $100 million from private founda-
tions. Moreover, more than half of the latter
funding was for historic preservation and
history-related museum projects, leaving only
$50 million for traditional humanities disci-
plines.
The lack of data on funding for the
humanities presents great difficulties in any
study of the issue. The largest arena for the
humanities is higher education; yet there is
little data about the humanities available for
this sector. The major annual survey of
voluntary support to higher education,
Voluntary Support to Education — which collects
data on 85% of the voluntary support received
by colleges and universities in a given year —
does not disaggregate the humanities. This
represents a sizable gap since higher education
received approximately $12.4 billion in
charitable contributions from nongovernmen-
tal sources in 1994. Of this total, individuals
gave 50%; foundations, 21%; corporations,
20%; and other organizations, 9%.w Indi-
vidual gifts to higher education are generally
unrestricted and their use cannot be disaggre-
gated. In addition, there is no data about
donations to historical societies, other than
certain limited information provided by the
Foundation Center. The American Associa-
tion of State and Local Historical Societies
intends to develop such a database about
income sources, but it does not exist yet.
Data on the humanities is limited to
foundation giving because the Foundation
Center has the only data base on funding of
the humanities. Its data is reliable, though
limited. Since the database is derived from a
sample, it does not reflect absolute figures for
any one year.7" Direct grants by foundations
to individuals are not included in the aggre-
gate data.7' It cannot be used for long-term
trends because its categories of analysis were
limited to language/literature, history, and
65 In addition, $1 ,000,000 has been added to the arts budget for the new biennium. The increase is for a new initiative and is unrelated to external
events. Bernstein noted that these changes take time.
66 Community foundations hold 4.9% of the assets held by foundations.
67 Marian Godfrey, Testimony to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, p. 3.
68 See Joan T Hocky, "Report on Private Funding to Organizations in New York City that Serve Artists of Color and Their Work " (New York June
25, 1995).
69 Nancy Horton, "Philanthropic Support for Higher Education," Research Briefs (vol. 6,3) 1 995, p. 1 .
70 Memo from loren Renz, Vice President for Research, Foundation Center, August 4, 1995. Interview with Frederick Schoff, Vice-President for
Publications, The Foundation Center, August 3, 1995.
71 For example, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, which recently awarded about $1 ,700,000 in fellowships in the humanities does not
appear among the top 25 funders of the humanities because grants to individuals are not included. Similarly, the Rockefeller Foundation's
grantmaking in the humanities is greatly underestimated.
Direct support of the
humanities is more
likely to come from
public rather than
private funds. In
1993 NEH funding for
the humanities was
$172.4 million,
compared to slightly
more than $100
million from private
foundations.
art/architecture grants until 1989 when the
Foundation Center adopted the National
Taxonomy for Exempt Entities (NTEE) for
categorizing grants.72 NTEE uses a broader
definition of the humanities and includes
grants to humanities organizations as well as
awards in art history, history and archaeology,
classical languages, foreign language schools/
services, language and linguistics; literary
services/activities; philosophy/ethics; theol-
ogy/comparative religion as humanities
grants.
Definitional problems still remain. Founda-
tions classify grants according to their own
programmatic goals. Foundation Giving and
The Grants Index, both published by the
Foundation Center, include in their humani-
ties totals only those awards which they
designate with a primary coding in the
humanities. Thus, for example, their list of
the top 25 foundations that fund the humani-
ties, reproduced as Table 9, at right, is based
solely on grants whose primary identification
is as a humanities grant.73 A grant with a
humanities component, but with a different
primary identification, is not taken into
account. As a result, the figures in Table 9
frequently understate the amount of humani-
ties funding by these foundations.74
The Foundation Center's coding system is
an attempt to get comparable data across
foundations, but this attempt is limited by a
foundation's self-definitions. For example, if a
foundation with a higher education program,
but no specified programmatic interest in the
humanities, gives a grant to a college or
university, the grant will automatically be
categorized by the Foundation Center as a
grant to higher education. If there is a clear
indication that the grant involves humanities
content, the grant will receive a secondary or
perhaps tertiary classification in the humani-
ties. Grants with secondary or tertiary
designations are not included in the aggregate
data published in Foundation Giving and The
Grants Index, but can be retrieved through
tailored requests for data from the Foundation
Center. Humanities funding will still be
undercounted since many grants are not
clearly designated. (See Appendix I for
humanities funding totals when higher
education — with a secondary or tertiary
designation in the humanities — is requested.
2. Foundations that fund humanities programs.
Humanities funding at foundations identi-
fied as the top 25 humanities funders by the
Foundation Center (see Table 9) falls into
four separate categories: (a) Foundations
with humanities programs that are distinct
from their arts programs; (b) Foundations
with undifferentiated arts and humanities
programs; (c) Foundations without humani-
ties programs per se, but that intentionally
fund the humanities; (d) Foundations
without a programmatic interest in the
humanities that nevertheless may fund
projects which involve the humanities.
Of those funders interviewed, only three —
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the
Rockefeller Foundation, and the Mrs. Giles
Whiting Foundation — have humanities
programs that are distinct from their arts
programs. The Mellon Foundation funds the
humanities through three distinct programs
for research libraries, graduate fellowships,
and the liberal arts. Two foundations — The
Kresge Foundation and the Ahmanson
Foundation — have undifferentiated arts and
humanities programs. Five foundations — the
Samuel Kress Foundation, the Henry Luce
Foundation, the Getty Trust, the Lynde and
Harry Bradley Foundation, and the Geraldine
Dodge Foundation — have other program-
matic goals, but intentionally fund in the
humanities; while the rest fund the humani-
ties somewhat inadvertently as they fulfill
other programmatic goals.75
a. Foundations with humanities programs
that are distinct from their arts programs. Of
the three foundations with distinct programs
in the humanities, only Mellon funds the
humanities broadly and extensively. Robert
Pennoyer, Director of the Mrs. Giles Whiting
Foundation, which allocates $935,000 for
graduate fellowships in the humanities, was
dismayed to learn that this program would
place his small foundation among the top 25
funders, let alone in the top ten.7''
Mellon is by far the largest private hinder
of the humanities. According to Richard
Ekman, the Mellon Foundation's Secretary,
the foundation expends $30,000,000 annually
72 See p. 2 above.
71 Additional information can be retrieved from the data base, however. See Appendix I,
74 For example, the figures for humanities giving cited by program officers at the Mellon and Rockefeller Foundations are higher than those in Table
9 because the former include funding for higher education or for other areas that were not defind as humanities grants by the Foundation Center.
73 See Appendix I for a comparable listing when higher education grants with a secondary or tertiary designation in the humanities are included.
Seven foundations in Table 9 did not participate in this study.
"' Phone interview, June 1995.
Table 9:
Top 25 Humanities Funders in 199377
Foundation
$ to humanities
# of grants
1 The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
$14,854,000
19
2 Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Fund
$6,043,805
25
3 Drue Heinz Foundation
$5,060,000
4
4 F.W. Olin Foundation, Inc.
$2,160,000
1
5 The Fletcher Jones Foundation
$1,500,000
1
6 The Rockefeller Foundation
$1,438,850
19
7 The Ford Foundation
$1,189,408
9
8 The Kresge Foundation
$1,000,000
1
9 Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation
$975,000
5
1 0 Charles R. Culpeper Foundation
$930,947
6
11 J. Paul Getty Trust
$743,600
8
1 2 The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
$693,951
15
1 3 Samuel Kress Foundation
$621,000
36
1 4 Lilly Endowment
$526,604
1
1 5 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
$525,000
2
1 6 Lettie Pate Evans Foundation
$500,000
1
1 7 W.W Keck Foundation
$500,000
2
1 8 Central European University Foundation
$456,264
5
1 9 Henry Luce Foundation
$445,000
3
20 Florence Gould Foundation
$411,839
3
2 1 Geraldine Dodge Foundation
$376,559
8
22 Arthur Vining Davis
$316,000
3
23 Soros Foundation
$306,557
1
24 J.M. Kaplan Fund
$305,000
11
25 The Ahmanson Foundation
$273,000
10
Source: The Foundation Center. (Note: Figures in this table vary from some numbers cited in the text due, in part, to
different definitions used by individual foundations and the Foundation Center in classifying grants.)
to support research libraries, graduate educa-
tion, liberal arts colleges, and research.78 As
Ekman observed, some of Mellon's programs
complement those at NEH, but others
provide support to aspects of the humanities
that the NEH does not reach, such as graduate
fellowships. Both Mellon and NEH support
"long-term scholarly projects that organize the
raw materials of research to produce editions,
translations, dictionaries, library catalogues,
and other reference materials that are used by
students and faculty." While Mellon provides
between $1 and $2 million a year for projects of
this sort, NEH annually allocates more than
$15 million.79 Ekman testified that a 10%
reduction in NEH funding for editions, transla-
tions and research tools could be offset only by
increasing the Foundation's expenditures in this
area by 50-100% — "an adjustment. . .that. .
.would distort the Foundation's other pro-
grams— including those that address areas of the
humanities that are not the focus of NEH's
current activities."80
According to its own figures, the Rockefeller
Foundation is the second largest humanities
funder with annual expenditures approaching
$7,000,000 a year. According to Tomas
Ybarra-Frausto, Associate Director of the
77 This listing ignores much significant humanities-related giving, e.g., grants to higher education, grants under $ 1 0,000, and grants to individual;
78 Testimony, Public Meeting of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, Jan. 25, 1 995, p 3 .
79 Ibid., p. 4.
80 Ibid.
"Private foundations,
corporate and family
foundations do their
funding by guidelines
and goals which are
special to their
interests and
institutional purposes;
they fund on a project
basis to advance their
corporate ideas...."
Arts and Humanities, "Humanities program-
ming at the Rockefeller Foundation is
rooted in its original mission to serve the
well-being of humankind," and is linked to
the other programs and divisions of the
foundation.81 One result is that humanities
programming at Rockefeller has been
traditionally aimed at contemporary issues,
and changes to reflect those issues. Says
Lynn Szwaja, Senior Research Associate for
the Arts and Humanities, "Our current
guidelines have moved us into problem-
based funding. We can no longer be as
responsive to the needs of the humanities as
a field."82 In her 1995 testimony before the
Subcommittee on Labor, Education, Arts
and Humanities of the United States Senate,
Alberta Arthurs, Director of the Arts and
Humanities Program at the Rockefeller
Foundation, pointed out, "Private founda-
tions, corporate and family foundations do
their funding by guidelines and goals which
are special to their interests and institutional
purposes; they fund on a project basis to
advance their corporate ideas...."83 Since the
overall goals of the Rockefeller Foundation
are to further equity and sustainable develop-
ment, its humanities programming is
consistent with that agenda. Other founda-
tions have similarly appropriate guidelines.
b. Foundations with undifferentiated arts
and humanities programs. Humanities
funding at the Kresge Foundation is re-
stricted to funds for capital campaigns.
Humanities awards have gone to historical
societies, history museums, and colleges; in
the arts, to theaters, concert halls, and art
museums. Because these are general support
rather than substantive humanities awards,
criteria for arts and humanities are not
differentiated. Kresge frequently partners in
these projects with other federal agencies
including the Challenge Grant Programs of
NEH and NEA.
Humanities funding at the Ahmanson
Foundation is undifferentiated from arts and
culture. With support limited to southern
California, Ahmanson provides awards in
three major areas: arts and humanities,
education, and social welfare. Annual
allocations at the Ahmanson Foundation
have averaged $20,000,000. Of this, the arts
and humanities have held a large share of the
programming with 32% in 1989 and 29% in
1993. Manya Schaff, a program officer at
Ahmanson, does not expect arts, culture and
humanities funding to decrease and notes
that, although social welfare spending went
up in 1994, funds to arts did not go down.
By the same token, she does not expect any
changes in response to cuts in federal funding
at NEH because the foundation moves slowly
in reaction to external stimuli. She says that
the foundation is on an alert basis. 84
c. Foundations without humanities programs
per se, but that intentionally fund the
humanities. Of the five foundations that
have non-humanities programs that intersect
with issues and concerns of humanities
disciplines, two — the Getty Trust and the
Samuel Kress Foundation — are limited to art
history and conservation. The Getty Trust
expends $6,500,000 annually — both nation-
ally and internationally, for its programs in
conservation and art history. The Samuel
Kress Foundation disbursed $2,500,000 in
1992. Charles Meyers, acting director of the
Getty Grant Program, observed that Getty
provides support to both national and
international projects. The impact of budget
reductions at NEA, NEH, and IMS is a great
unknown, but he expects that the increased
demand for domestic funding could distort
the balance of Getty funding.85
The Henry Luce Foundation also provides
substantial funding for art history, some
$4,000,000 last year, with a focus limited to
American art. In addition, it provides money
to support research in Asian affairs, higher
education, and religion. The amounts
allocated to Asian affairs and higher education
vary each year, depending on the size of the
portfolio and the quality of grants received.
Thus in 1992, the foundation disbursed
$2,371,000 for its Asian Affairs program,
which grew to $3,790,000 in 1993. In
higher education, $270,000 was disbursed in
1992, but $525,000 in 1993.86 Ellen
Holtzman notes that "although previous
NEA or NEH funding is not a decisive factor
in our grantmaking, [she does] regard it
highly because it shows an acknowledgment
el Phone interview, August 16, 1995.
"'' Phone interview, August 16, 1995.
95 March 2, 1995.
u Phone interview, Manya Schaff, July 28, 1 995. It should be noted that art, culture and the humanities are used interchangeably by this foundation.
" Phone interview, July 10, 1995.
"' Phone interview, August 14, 1995.
by the field of a level of excellence."87 John
Wesley Cook, the Foundation's president,
states that they consult with NEH program
officers about grants submitted to both
organizations and they are strongly influenced
by NEH approval.88 He adds that the
foundation is now on alert, listening to the
needs of its applicants because of reduced
funds available elsewhere. However, more
openness to the needs of grantees does not
mean that the foundation will be able to
change its priorities. Holtzman says she has
already seen a reduction in the number of
applicants who list the NEA and NEH as co-
funders.
The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
does not have a humanities program, but is
aware that it funds the humanities through
the support it provides to higher education.
Program officer Hillel Fradkin observed that
since the Bradley Foundation is a mid-size
foundation, it does not allocate specific
amounts of money to its different program
interests, but funds projects based on the
quality of the proposals submitted. Of the
$1,750,000 awarded last year for graduate
fellowships, Fradkin estimated that half were
in the humanities. One-third to one-half of
the money allocated for book projects went
to humanities projects; in addition, two
special projects were also in the humanities.89
Fradkin expects funding at Bradley to
continue at the same level, but not to expand
because resources at the foundation are
limited. He foresees a scarcity of resources
for fellowships, particularly for younger
scholars, as well as for media and editing
projects.
The Geraldine Dodge Foundation funds
the humanities through its focus on education
and school reform. Thus, it has collaborated
with NEH and the New Jersey Committee
on the Humanities to expand summer
institutes for teachers. With annual giving at
$11 million to be allocated among its five
program areas, humanities funding fluctuates
each
year.
d. Foundations without a programmatic
interest in the humanities that may neverthe-
less fund projects involving the humanities.
Most of these foundations fund the humani-
Phone interview, June 1, 1995.
Phone interview, June 15, 1995.
Phone interview, August 1, 1995.
Phone Interview, Scott McVey, June 5, 1 995.
ties as byproducts of other programmatic
concerns. This is true for the Lila Wallace-
Readers Digest Fund, the Ford Foundation,
the Lilly Endowment, the John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the
Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.
Lila Wallace-Readers Digest does not fund
the humanities as a category, but its visual arts
program provides support for interpretive
material when it gives awards to museums to
expand their audiences. It supports public
humanities programs at independent research
libraries — the Folger Shakespeare Library, the
Newberry Library, the J. P. Morgan Library,
and the American Antiquarian Society — to
help attract a broader public. Similarly the
Ford Foundation's Education and Culture
Division does not explicitly seek humanities
projects. Nonetheless, that division, as well as
others at the Foundation, may fund humani-
ties research in order to fulfill other program-
matic goals in the urban poverty program or
the international affairs division, for example.91
The Lilly Endowment provides significant
support to the humanities through its program
in religion which gives away $20,000,000 a
year. Craig Dykstra estimates that half this
funding goes to universities to research a
variety of issues including African American
religion, Protestantism, and American Catholi-
cism, among others. He estimates that almost
half of that $10,000,000 may be in the
humanities.92 The John D. and Catherine T
MacArthur Foundation funds humanities
projects or practitioners through its Peace and
International Cooperation Program, the
MacArthur Fellows Program, and the Media
Program. Kennette Benedict says that some
portion of the $18 million given through the
Peace and International Cooperation Program
funds the humanities through its support of
ethnography, ethnic studies, the dynamics of
conflict, and cooperation. Catharine Stimpson
suspects that about 20% of the MacArthur
Fellows Program, which has supported 458
fellows since 1981, were historians, art
historians, or critics. The Arthur Vining Davis
Foundation supports private liberal arts
colleges, but grants are given to an institution
with no regard to the kind of program that the
funds will support. The foundation has also
funded some media projects.
91 Alison Bernstein noted that the Education and Culture Division at the Ford Foundation is re-thinking its funding of area studies and will emphasize
culture.
92 Phone Interview, July, 1995. The education program which is also funded at $20 million has little connection to the humanities.
The restricted size and
nature of private-
sector humanities
funding bring into
relief the importance
of the NEH as the only
funder specifically
charged with
operating on a
national scale and
with a systematic
approach to fostering
the growth of the
humanities.
A statewide program in
California that provides
administrative support
to share exhibitions
throughout the state, or
a reading and
discussion series in
some of North
Carolina's poorest and
most isolated counties,
bring humanities
programs to
underserved regions.
Unfortunately this type
of program does not
attract private-sector
donors.
3. Prospects for replacing federal funds.
The restricted size and nature of private-
sector humanities funding bring into relief the
importance of the NEH as the only funder
specifically charged with operating on a
national scale and with a systematic approach
to fostering the growth of the humanities. For
fiscal year 1996, Congress cut the NEH's
budget by 36%, to $110 million. Support for
the humanities at NEH that will be the most
difficult to replace includes funding for
humanities research, outreach activities and
the building and support of infrastructure.
NEH's partners in this endeavor are limited
to the state humanities councils and the
handful of foundations listed above who fund
the humanities.93 Each of these areas of
concern is discussed at more length below.
a. Research opportunities for individual
scholars. NEH alone provides more research
opportunities for individual scholars than the
combined support from the four other
national post-doctoral fellowship competi-
tions. In 1994, NEH provided fellowships
for 219 college and university faculty and
independent scholars and summer stipends for
another 202 scholars-researchers; while the
American Council of Learned
Societies(ACLS), the John Simon
Guggenheim Foundation, the National
Humanities Center, and the Rockefeller
Foundation awarded only 197 humanities
fellowships.94 Guggenheim disbursed roughly
$1,700,000 for fellowships in the humanities;
Rockefeller, $2,700,000; and ACLS,
$1,100,000. NEH's expenditure was
$6,000,000.
b. Outreach. Efforts to bring the fruits of
humanities scholarship to the broadest
possible public are the most visible part of the
NEH's support for the humanities. It
includes films, museum exhibits, or library
discussion groups, and public lectures.
Examples of NEH-funded museum projects
are "Seeds of Change," an exhibit for the
Columbian Quincentenary that was seen by
over 2,000,000 people nationwide, and "The
Age of Rubens," which had 226,000 visitors
in Toledo, Ohio alone. Films include Ken
Burns' "Civil War," an NEH success story,
seen by 38 million viewers.
The NEH summer institutes and seminars
for 2,000 school teachers and 1,000 college
teachers provide another form of outreach —
in this case aimed at disseminating the latest
scholarly approaches and methods to high
school and college teachers. Each year,
500,000 students benefit from these teachers'
expanded knowledge base. These seminars
maintain the interest and commitment of
teachers in pre-collegiate systems. They also
serve to keep college faculty in remote non-
research institutions in touch with the most
recent work in their field.
These summer institutes are one of the
few sources of funding for college-high
school collaboratives and have helped to
improve teaching in the basic humanities
disciplines. Collaborations with the
Geraldine Dodge Foundation and the
Andrew Mellon Foundation have enabled
these programs to expand.95
c. Infrastructure. Infrastructure is less visible;
the term, in this case, refers to enlarging and
preserving the tools of scholarship, the
building blocks upon which scholarship and
outreach depend. This includes the NEH-
supported program to preserve brittle books
and newspapers in libraries across the country
by microfilming them before they disinte-
grate, as well as the editing and publication of
the papers of such important historical figures
as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson,
James Madison, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
These are long, labor-intensive efforts. The
editing and publication of Thomas Jefferson's
papers has been in progress for 50 years.
From the beginning, it has been a public-
private partnership. The Papers of George
Washington, also supported by NEH, consist
of 130,000 annotated documents that will be
issued for the first time in both print and
electronic form.
Editing or translating authoritative schol-
arly editions also generally fall into the
category of infrastructure. This includes
reference works, critical editions, and some
new editions of authors for the general
public, such as the Library of America
volumes.
Formal collaborations with private hinders,
such as those cited above, are necessarily less
extensive than those in the arts. Some
93 See below for a discussion o( ihe slate humanities councils and the federal-state partnership.
'"■ NHC received NEH support for 1/3 of its 36 fellows.
n Memo from Bruce Robinson, Assistant Director for Elementary and Secondary Education, NEH, June 6, 1995.
funders, such as the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation, the largest humanities hinder
among the private foundations, have pro-
grams that parallel NEH programs and they
often co-fund projects. Others — like the
Whiting Foundation, with an annual budget
of only $1,237,000 that places it among the
10 largest humanities funders — fund only
graduate fellowships in the humanities.96
Since foundations rarely like to fund long-
term programs, projects frequently have been
funded in seriatim.97 Thus when Pew and
Mellon money ended at The Jefferson Papers
in 1992, the project was able to secure NEH
funding.98
d. State Humanities Councils. Established in
the mid-seventies, the 56 state and territorial
humanities councils "sponsor programs that
educate citizens about the history of their
nation and community, engage them in
reasoned discussion of public issues, encour-
age participation in civic life. . ." through
content-based professional development
opportunities for humanities teachers and
literacy training for new readers. The
programs include a variety of formats, such as
lectures, exhibits, multi-session reading and
discussion series, week-long Chautauquas,
intensive teacher institutes, conferences, films
and others."99
State humanities councils are in the
anomalous position of being both funders and
fundraisers. For that reason, their experience
provides a useful perspective on the possibil-
ity of obtaining increased private support for
the humanities. In FY 95, NEH allocated
$26,952,000 outright and another $4,530,000
on a matching basis to be divided among the
56 state councils.1"" A profile of the sources
of income of the average state humanities
council reveals that in 1995, 59% of a total
budget of $777,056 came from NEH
outright, 13% from NEH matching funds,
4% from other NEH funds, 7% from state
funds, and 14% from private sources, the
latter down from 17% in 1992."" As noted
elsewhere in this report, just over
$10,000,000 was raised by all of the councils
in the aggregate from other sources as a result
of the NEH matching program.
Seven of the most successful fundraisers
among the state humanities councils were
interviewed for this report: California,
Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Ne-
braska, and Vermont.1"2 North Carolina,
which has been less successful in raising
funds, was also interviewed. Several gener-
alizations emerged from interviews with the
executive directors of these councils when
they were asked about their successes in
reaching private funders. Their experiences
confirm much of what is already known
about private donors, but provide insights
into the difficulty of raising private funds for
the humanities, and for statewide humanities
programs in particular. Thus, states with a
strong philanthropic base and tradition, such
as Minnesota and Indiana, are more success-
ful seeking private support than states that
have neither a number of local foundations
nor a strong corporate base. Additionally,
the experience of these state humanities
councils is consistent with the findings about
the low incidence of individual giving to arts,
culture, and the humanities documented in
Giving and Volunteering.
Other conditions affecting fundraising
include a state's geographic size, population
distribution, and economic status — condi-
tions that are either immutable or far from
malleable. Large states with isolated rural
populations, such as California, Nebraska,
and North Carolina, must expend more
time, money, and effort fulfilling their
missions to provide statewide programming.
In addition to diluting visibility, spreading
programs throughout the state is expensive.
Thus, California maintains two additional
offices — one in Los Angeles and the other in
San Diego — to coordinate activities in the
southern part of the state. A statewide
program in California that provides adminis-
trative support to share exhibitions through-
out the state, or a reading and discussion
series in some of North Carolina's poorest
and most isolated counties, bring humanities
programs to underserved regions. Unfortu-
nately this type of program does not attract
private-sector donors. As Kristina Valaitis,
Executive Director of the Illinois Humanities
Council, observed about her state, "Most
corporations and foundations are in Chicago.
With few exceptions, they are not interested
96 Of this total, $300,000 goes to creative writing, and these awards are categorized as arts funding.
97 Testimony by Richard Ekman to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, January 25, 1995.
08 Phone Interview with John Catanzariti, Editor of the Thomas Jefferson Papers, June 1 , 1 995.
>9 Based on statement from the Federation of State Humanities Councils.
100 These are the totals after a $5,000,000 rescission.
101 Federation of State Humanities Councils, 1995 Staff Salary and Council Income Report.
102 Carole Watson, Director of the Federal-State Partnership at NEH, and Jamil Zainaldin, Executive Director of the Federation of State Humanities
Council, provided a list of the most successful fundraisers among the state councils.
State humanities
councils are in the
anomalous position of
being both funders
and fundraisers.
Indiana started fund
raising in 1976, but
even in a state as
well-endowed as
Indiana and a city as
fortunate as
Indianapolis in terms
of its community-
minded corporations
and foundations, it
took 1 0 years for the
campaign to
bear fruit.
in going state-wide."103
A second generalization is that the federal
system fosters creativity, adaptability, risk-
taking and ingenuity. Says Valaitis, "There
was a real pioneering spirit in the early days.
We were set up to require a variety of
funding sources. The state humanities
councils represent a federal program that has
worked imaginatively." This can be seen in
the several different approaches to program-
ming, institution-building, and fundraising
that emerge from among the agencies
analyzed in this report. Florida, with neither
a strong corporate base nor an extensive
philanthropic community, has been able to
rely on the state for one third of its funding,
far above the 7% average cited above. With a
growing population, Florida is the fourth
largest state in the country. Ann Henderson,
Executive Director of the Florida Humanities
Council, explains that her state legislature's
largesse is due to its awareness that such a fast-
growing state inevitably gets short shrift from
the federal government because allocations are
based on a census which is outdated before it
is published. As a result, the Florida Humani-
ties Council has received state funding for the
last 15 years. In 1994, the Florida Center for
Teachers, which started as a council-initiated
project, became part of the state university
system.
The Indiana Humanities Council, on the
other hand, has not gone to its state legislature
for support. In 1994, of a $1.5 million total
budget, Indiana received only $585,000 from
NEH. Over $900,000 came from founda-
tions, corporations, and individuals.104 With a
large base of foundations in Indianapolis,
several of which are interested in the arts,
education, and the humanities, the Indiana
Humanities Council has been fortunate. The
Indiana Council received money from the
Lilly Endowment for the Indiana Interna-
tional Forum, a state-wide program that
focuses on Indiana's role in the global
community. Wordstruck, a program that
brings writers and scholars to 50 local
communities throughout the state, received
funding from corporations. Says Weaver
Smith, the Indiana Council's Executive
Director, "Indianapolis has a really significant
philanthropic community. Many people in
these organizations are founders and friends of
the humanities council." 105
Victor Swenson, Executive Director of the
Vermont Humanities Council, reported that
his council started its fundraising activities in
1984 with a goal of raising $30,000. One of
the first state councils to hire a private
fundraiser, Vermont now raises 50%,
$450,000 out of $900,000, from private
sources, which include businesses, individuals,
and small foundations. The Council's Board
and Swenson himself have been very active in
raising funds — ranging from $500 to $2,500
— from individuals. In order to raise this
amount of money, the council has had to
alter and narrow its mission. It sees itself less
as a grantmaking agency and more as an
organization with a specific active agenda — to
increase literacy throughout the state. This
strategy is tied to the state of Vermont's
announced goal of achieving literacy for all of
its citizens by the year 2000.
Council-initiated programs were the first
strategy devised by state humanities councils
to raise their visibility and, with such visibil-
ity, increase private funding. These pro-
grams— many of which are unique to a
particular state because they draw on its local
history and interests — give each state council
its own particular flavor. The Chicago
Humanities Festival, now in its sixth year, has
been successful as a fundraising event,
attracting 15,000 people in one weekend.
Nineteen educational and cultural organiza-
tions in Chicago put on as many as 40
different programs on humanities themes.
Institutions like the Chicago Historical
Society and the University of Chicago are
involved. Funding has come from the
MacArthur Foundation which has a strong
Chicago focus. Other programs, such as
speakers' bureaus, teachers' institutes, and
Motherread, a family reading institute, are
replicated from one state to another.""'
A third conclusion is that federal funds
have been important in gaining state funding.
The Minnesota Humanities Council received
more than one-third of its funding from the
state in 1994. Out of a $1,500,000 total
budget, $600,000 came from the state
legislature and $550,000 from NEH. The
rest was raised from corporations and founda-
tions. Florida and Minnesota, which have
both been able to maintain a high level of
"" Phone interview, June 5, 1995.
104 The Indiana Humanities Council has been able to mount an annual campaign that brings in $ 1 50,000
'"' Phone interview, June 2, 1995.
"*' Nebraska's speakers bureau sent 690 speakers across the state in 1994.
state funding, view federal funding as a
necessary source of leverage for state funds.
Cheryl Dickson, the Executive Director of
the Minnesota Humanities Council,
observed that when federal funding to the
arts went down in Minnesota, the state
legislature lowered its allocation too.
Swenson adds that federal support has been
crucial to the Vermont Council's ability to
leverage private money as well.
State funding is unpredictable, however.
The long-standing support that the Florida
Humanities Council has received from the
legislature is not the rule. A new state
legislature may change its priorities; a
sympathetic governor may not be able to
rally new support or needed funding when
new demands appear from other sectors.
Cheryl Dickson is concerned that
Minnesota's 10,000 non-profits will be
competing for public and private money
throughout the state and expects the
competition, which is already fierce, to
become cut-throat. In these difficult times,
even the strong support of the Governor of
Illinois may not leverage more than 10% of
the income that the Illinois Council already
gets from the state. On the other hand, the
North Carolina legislature very recently
surprised the Humanities Council with a
line-item appropriation, only the second in
the Council's history.
These executives all emphasize that
fundraising is a long-term effort. Swenson
of Vermont points out that the need to
develop a successful programmatic strategy
and to cultivate individuals is a slow process.
Indiana started fundraising in 1976, but even
in a state as well-endowed as Indiana and a
city as fortunate as Indianapolis in terms of
its community-minded corporations and
foundations, it took 10 years for the cam-
paign to bear fruit. Like North Carolina
and California, Indiana is a very diverse
state: the southeastern part of the state is
rural; Indianapolis is a model city; and
northwest Indiana is predominantly urban
and suburban. Weaver Smith notes that
"beyond our core of support in Indianapolis,
we still have a great deal to do."
The Nebraska Humanities Council has
actively focused on private fundraising since
1989 when it set up a 25 member board for
this purpose. In 1990, the Council raised
just under $50,000 in private funds; last
year, it increased its intake to over $135,000
from corporations, foundations, and indi-
viduals. The state of Nebraska allocated
about $104,000 to the Council as well. As a
result, the Council's NEH appropriation of
$460,000 was only 66% of its 1994 budget.
The Nebraska Council takes its commitment
to program across the state very seriously. In
1994, the Council served 125 districts with
programs in 190 communities. Of these, 10
were in Omaha, 25 in Lincoln and the other
125 were scattered across Nebraska's third
congressional district which is larger in area
than the six New England states combined.
Despite this commitment, Hood believes
that cuts to NEH will hit rural districts the
hardest. To make up for the loss of federal
funds, the Council recently hired a consult-
ing firm to develop a plan to raise an
endowment. The consultant's first recom-
mendation was to drop the word "humani-
ties" from the name of the organization.1"7
Most of the situations described so far are
not unique to the humanities, but there are
circumstances peculiar to humanities
organizations and hybrid granter-grantee
institutions such as these councils that should
be confronted when thinking about
privatization of support for the humanities.
The first is simply that, as we have seen
throughout this report, there is confusion
about the very meaning of the term humani-
ties. Second, there are few funders with a
programmatic focus on the humanities. Says
Cheryl Dickson, "Even in a state with as
concentrated a group of funders as Minne-
sota, it's hard to get money for the humani-
ties. We often have to disguise ourselves as
human services. We've had an easier time
with an ethics in medicine program,
Motherread, and a K-12 teachers' institute."
In Vermont, the Humanities Council
program has dealt with the issue by focusing
on literacy. This strategy has been very
successful in raising state and private support
because it relates to the state's goal of
achieving 100% literacy by the year 2000.
Other funders do not want to contract the
richness of their humanities programming to
such a degree. Nevertheless, Weaver Smith
thinks that Indiana may have to focus more
107 Phone interview with Jane Hood, June 6, 1 995.
"If there are more
pressing social issues,
education and the
humanities will seem
like luxuries.
Whatever we have
done thus far in
raising external
money has been in
the context of
knowing where our
salaries, rent, and
operating costs were
coming from."
The Institute of
Museum Services,
created by Congress in
1 976, is the only
agency dedicated
exclusively to the
improvement of
museum operations.
on single issues, such as the problems of
adolescents, in order to raise funds successfully.
Humanities councils have particular
difficulty raising funds from individuals. This
is in part because of public confusion over the
meaning of the humanities and the scope of
their subject matter. Council-initiated
programs are frequently carried out with a
local partner who may get most of the credit.
Generally, organizations seeking to raise funds
from individuals will try to take advantage of
the relationships and personal contacts of their
board members. It has often proven difficult
for humanities councils to position a board for
this purpose. Here too, a state's size can be a
factor. In a state the size of California, for
example, the board's contacts are negligible.
North Carolina found that its board, which
was largely academic and thus well-suited to
directing the mission of the humanities
council, was not properly positioned for or
even sympathetic toward fundraising.
Oddly enough, the humanities councils'
role as grant-maker — especially with a mission
for an entire state — can hamper them. As
grantmaking agencies, they fund programs and
events through grantees who then get credit
and recognition. The re-granting program
gives the state agency its broadest reach and
allows for more grass-roots participation. All
the directors interviewed talked of the
impossibility of replacing this grant money.
Weaver Smith of Indiana predicts that as
federal funding gets leaner, the pressure on all
non-federal funding will become severe.
Funds are limited, making it a zero sum game.
"In Indiana, Humanities gets its support from
the education and continuing education
pool," she continued. "If there are more
pressing social issues, education and the
humanities will seem like luxuries. Whatever
we have done thus far in raising external
money has been in the context of knowing
where our salaries, rent, and operating costs
were coming from. Then we can plan and
raise money for programs ahead of time. It
will be different if we don't know where
November's payroll is coming from." Even
Florida, which gets almost 50% of its money
from non-federal sources, says it will not
survive federal budget-cutting.
D. THE INSTITUTE OF MUSEUM SERVICES
While this report does not contain a
detailed analysis of funding from the Institute
of Museum Services (IMS) to the museum
field, the role of IMS deserves mention. The
responses of foundation executives to the cuts
in direct federal support for culture are also
relevant to the Institute of Museum Services
and the museums it supports. Private funding
figures for museums are included in the
summary of private giving to the arts and the
humanities earlier in this report.
The Institute of Museum Services, created
by Congress in 1976, is the only agency
dedicated exclusively to the improvement of
museum operations. IMS funds all types of
museums including history, art and science
museums, zoological parks and botanical
gardens. IMS grants help museums maintain
hours of operation, care for collections,
support educational programs and provide
professional training for staff. Over its almost
20 year history, IMS has made 15,500 grants
to museums in communities small and large all
over the country as its budget grew from a
modest $3 million to a high of $28 million in
fiscal year 1995. Grants are competitive; only
26% of applications are funded. Like the NEA
and NEH, the IMS has matching require-
ments for its grantees. (Note: IMS' budget for
fiscal 1996 was cut to $21 million by Con-
gress, a 27% reduction.)
Cultural organizations and museums report,
as they did in the Foundation Center's 1993
benchmark study of private funding, that they
need more grants for general operating
support rather than specific project funding.
This need was also reported by the Henry
Luce Foundation in its 1993 study.1"" IMS is
an important source for such general operating
support, allocating about 80% of its funds for
this purpose.
Although museums are more successful
than some cultural organizations at attracting
private support, many are still highly depen-
dent on government support from federal,
state and local sources. In its Data Report from
the 1989 National Museum Survey the Ameri-
can Association of Museums reported the
following distribution of museum income:
25.2% from private donations; 1 1.5% from
investments; 30.5% from earned income, and
32.8% from government sources. According
108 Evaluation of Arts Grants, The Henry Luce Foundation, Inc., August 1993. Also see Renz, Arts Funding
to the American Association of Museums, of
the $1.2 billion received from the public
sector in 1988, 41% came from the federal
government (including direct appropriations
to the Smithsonian and other national
museums), 34% from local governments, 20%
from state governments, and 5% from other
governmental sources.109 While there is no
museum infrastructure analogous to the state
and local arts councils and the state humanities
councils, there are an estimated 8,000
museums of all types across the country, and
museums have several national professional
organizations to serve them.
Other federal agencies which provide
museum funding are the National Endow-
ment for the Humanities, the National
Endowment for the Arts, the Department of
Education, the National Park Service and the
National Science Foundation. Of course, the
federal government gives direct funding to the
Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery
of Art and to both the Library of Congress
and the National Archives, which own
millions of visual records and objects and
which also mount exhibitions.
SECTION IV:
The Role of Tax Policy
Although a detailed examination of
proposed changes to the tax code is beyond
the scope of this study, any discussion of
public versus private funding of charitable or
not-for-profit activity must take note of the
central role played by tax policy. United
States tax laws, on the state and local as well as
federal level, favor organizations engaged in
such activities in a variety of ways.110 Thus,
not-for-profit arts, culture, and humanities
organizations are generally exempt from
property and sales taxes at the state and local
level as well as from income taxes at all
levels.111 The most prominent tax incentive
for charitable giving, however, is the ability of
donors to deduct charitable contributions in
computing their tax liability under -the
individual income and estate taxes and the
corporate income tax. Further, if a charitable
gift is in the form of appreciated property, the
donor gets the additional benefit of excluding
from income the amount of such appreciation.
Because our income tax system has a progres-
sive rate structure and a fairly substantial
standard deduction, the benefit of the chari-
table deduction is much greater for high-
income payers than for others. Conversely,
changes in the tax law that effect, directly or
indirectly, the value of the charitable deduction
are likely to have the strongest impact on the
charitable behavior of high-income donors.
A. THE EFFECT OF TAX LAW ON GIVING
BEHAVIOR.
Over the years, the charitable deduction has
been viewed as a central element in our
national policy toward charitable giving. In
the words of the 1988 Report to the President
of the President's Committee on the Arts and
the Humanities:
...while the Federal income tax system did
not create American philanthropy, it has
served as a powerful inducement to the
charitable impulse that encourages con-
tributions to nonprofit organizations. If
the charitable impulse is the engine that
drives the train of American philanthropy,
the charitable deduction is the coal that
stokes the engine.
Although there has been substantial debate
among economists as to the degree to which
the tax treatment of charitable giving affects
how much is given to whom, there is general
agreement that there is a substantial effect."2
For example, one of the leading works on the
subject, Federal Tax Policy and Charitable Giving,
by Charles Clotfelter, concludes that "Federal
tax policy has a substantial impact on the level
and distribution of charitable giving in the
United States.""3 Clotfelter states that his
"empirical analysis suggests that support for
charitable organizations responds both to
explicit tax incentives for charitable contribu-
tions and to general changes in effective tax
schedules."""*
Most economists believe that curtailing the
charitable deduction would have a chilling
effect on charitable giving. For example, in
l0' Museums Count. A Report by the American Association of Museums, Washington, DC, 1 994, pp. 42, 47.
110 Note however that all the tax "breaks" discussed here are directed toward organizations rather than toward individuals or specific activities,
which must always derive the benefit through a specific organization.
1 " In the absence of this tax exemption, an ACH organization would potentially be subject to tax on a variety of cash flows — ticket sales, investment
earnings, contributions, proceeds from the sale of goods and services related to the exempt purpose of the organization.
"2 See Clotfelter (1 985); Clotfelter testimony (1 995); Auten et al (1 992). But see Leslie Lenkowski, "To Increase Contributions, Decrease Taxes," The
Chronicle of Philanthropy, June 15, 1995, who argues that it is the amount of after-tax income available for making gifts that should be the
primary determinant of the level of giving.
113 Clotfelter (1985), p. 288. Elsewhere in that study, the author reports that his analysis indicates that repeal of the charitable deduction would
cause total charitable giving to fall by a quarter. (Page 141 )
"6Op.cil.
At present the law
provides a significant
incentive for giving by
high-income charitable
donors. Many of the
changes in the federal
income tax law that
are being publicly
debated these days —
such as various forms
of "flat tax" or
replacing the income
tax system with a
national sales or value
added tax — are likely
to decrease rather
than increase that
incentive.
The last thirty years
have witnessed the
formation of a complex
national funding
structure for the arts
and the humanities in
which the private and
public sectors reinforce
and complement
each other.
1986, gifts of appreciated property were
made subject to partial taxation under the
alternative minimum tax rules. Over the
next several years, there was an increasing
perception in Congress and elsewhere that
this "tightening" of the law had resulted in a
dramatic decline in certain kinds of contribu-
tions to major cultural institutions. As a
result, the rule was suspended temporarily,
then permanently repealed in 1993.
Many economists also believe that, all
other factors being equal, a decrease in the
highest marginal tax rate will result in less
charitable giving because (1) a disproportion-
ate amount of such gifts are made by taxpay-
ers in the highest brackets; (2) as the tax rate
goes down the "price" of giving (i.e., the
after tax cost to the taxpayer of each $1
received by the charity) goes up and makes
the act of giving less attractive; and (3) the
fact that such a taxpayer will in fact have
more disposable after-tax income out of
which to make gifts will not be as significant
a factor as the higher price of giving.
Current tax law is quite favorable to
charitable giving. There are no stringent
limits on the deduction, no adverse mini-
mum tax consequences, and marginal rates
are higher than they have been since 1986.
The only changes in tax law that could
increase the tax incentive for charitable
giving are to allow the deduction to those
taxpayers who do not itemize deductions on
their tax returns or to raise marginal rates
higher than their current level. The former
loses a significant amount of revenue and the
latter seems highly unlikely in today's
political climate.
B. THE IMPLICATIONS OF TAX POLICY FOR
ACH ORGANIZATIONS.
As noted elsewhere, the average household
income of individuals who give to cultural
organizations is high (over $59,000 in 1991
and over $56,500 in 1993). The giving
behavior of this group is more likely to be
influenced by changes in tax law than the
population as a whole. At present the law
provides a significant incentive for giving by
high-income charitable donors. Many of the
changes in the federal income tax law that are
being publicly debated these days — such as
various forms of "flat tax" or replacing the
income tax system with a national sales or
value added tax — are likely to decrease rather
than increase that incentive: by lowering the
tax rate; by broadening the income base,
which could result in a direct limitation or
elimination of the charitable deduction; or by
creating a deduction for savings that would
make charitable giving no more tax-favored
than investing. There seems little prospect of
any general change in the tax laws that would
have the effect of increasing the incentive to
make charitable contributions.115
In the absence of any change in the law,
current tax policy encourages gifts by the
high-net-worth taxpayer and will result in the
indirect federal support of the particular
institutions favored by those individuals. If,
as appears to be the case, wealthy individuals
tend to support large, well-established
institutions in our largest urban centers, then
less established or less urban organizations
may receive less support than they would
under a system of direct federal subsidy
funded through the appropriations budget
rather than the tax budget.
Vj A number of more drastic tax reform proposals that are being seriously considered — such as forms of "flat tax" — would shift the underlying basis
for our federal tax system away from using income as a base and more toward consumption. It is not entirely clear how charitable contributions
would be treated in such a system, but at the very best, they would be treated no more favorably than investment activity. If a taxpayer can get
the same tax benefit from making an investment as she can from making a charitable contribution, the tax incentive to make such charitable
contribution is minimal at best.
CONCLUSION
Since the creation of the National Endow-
ment for the Arts, the National Endowment
for the Humanities and the Institute of
Museum Services, both funding and activity
in the arts and the humanities have under-
gone enormous growth in the United States.
The last thirty years have witnessed the
formation of a complex national funding
structure for the arts and the humanities in
which the private and public sectors reinforce
and complement each other. The private
sector - individual giving, corporate support
and foundation funding - contributed much
to this growth in the arts and the humanities
and the improvement of museums, and was
paralleled by an increase in public investment
by federal, state and local governments.
Private sector donors provide funds
according to guidelines and goals which are
special to their interests and institutional
purposes; they fund to advance their corpo-
rate ideas. The private sector has the
privilege to choose grantees by the special-
ized criteria of its individual, corporate or
foundation donors. The public sector,
however, has a mandate to operate on a
national, state or local scale; to fund a wide
variety of purposes; and to develop its
funding goals through a public process.
In the private sector, each donor commu-
nity operates with a different set of incen-
tives, goals and methods. In general, private
sector funders favor large, regionally impor-
tant, well-established institutions, over the
smaller, community-based, less visible
organizations and individuals.
What distinguishes public investment
through the NEA, the NEH and the IMS, is
the mandate to make cultural experiences
accessible to all Americans. These federal
agencies developed national strategies to
encourage the growth of entire disciplines
and distribution systems, rather than fund the
growth or survival of a particular dance
company, research project or museum alone.
In addition, they have created a knowledge
bank about disciplines and audiences which
the rest of the funding community relies
upon. With annual investment much
smaller than total private sector giving,
NEA, NEH and IMS have supported a more
equitable distribution of cultural resources
across the country. The partnership between
federal and private funders has been success-
ful in increasing our country's cultural capital
and has established cultural products as an
important export of the United States.
As one hinder has said, 'America's unique
cultural system rests upon a complex and
delicately balanced funding framework.
Each cultural organization must piece
together a complex fabric of support out of
grants from various federal, state and local
agencies; corporate sponsors, foundation
grants, individual donations as well as earned
revenues."116
The loss of federal funding will upset this
balance and have many unpredictable
consequences. But it is clear that with
increased demands on their limited re-
sources, private foundations will not be able
to replace federal funds. Nor do the trends
among other donors indicate that these
sources can or will increase their giving.
Increased support from state budgets seems
unlikely. Giving to the arts by major U.S.
corporations is not increasing significantly,
and the drop in the size of individual
contributions is a worrisome trend not only
for the arts and the humanities but for all
philanthropy. Economic growth alone is not
a guarantee of increased private sector
giving. In the immediate future the small,
innovative and community-based arts and
humanities groups, the economically fragile
companies, scholarly projects, and individual
creators are most at risk of losing sources of
support.
The issue before all of us today is how to
ensure, improve, and increase charitable
giving and how to continue the public-
private partnership that has so dramatically
expanded cultural development and public
access to the arts and the humanities.
Marian Godfrey, Tesimony lo the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, January 25, 1 995.
But it is clear that with
increased demands on
their limited resources,
private foundations
will not be able to
replace federal funds.
APPENDIX I
Top 25 Funders of Grants with a Primary, Secondary or
Tertiary Designation in the Humanities, for 1993
Foundation
$ to humanities
# of grants
1
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
$16,481,520
27
2
Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Fund
$13,843,805
28
3
Drue Heinz Foundation
$5,075,750
5
4
The Ford Foundation
$4,107,968
24
5
The Pew Charitable Trusts
$4,016,000
16
6
The Henry Luce Foundation
$3,590,000
16
7
The Rockefeller Foundation
$3,405,150
38
8
The Kresge Foundation
$2,225,000
4
9
F.W. Olin Foundation, Inc.
$2,160,000
1
10
Lilly Endowment, Inc.
$1,830,895
7
11
DeWitt Wallace-Readers Digest Fund
$1,725,000
1
12
The Fletcher Jones Foundation
$1,500,000
1
13
W.K. Kellogg Foundation
$1,279,634
6
14
J. Paul Getty Trust
$1,236,000
20
15
Charles R. Culpeper Foundation
$1,155,947
8
16
The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
$1,091,441
25
17
The Dibner Fund, Inc.
$1,034,730
2
18
Max Kade Foundation, Inc.
$991,000
19
19
Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation
$975,000
5
20
John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
$810,622
15
21
John D. and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation
$792,185
6
22
Samuel Kress Foundation
$682,000
41
23
The Starr Foundation
$600,000
2
24
Stratford Foundation
$590,117
2
25
The Charlotte W Newcombe Foundation
$587,950
1
Source: The Foundation Center. Based on grants of $10,000 or more awarded to organizations. Excludes fellov
ships and other awards made directly to individuals and foundation-administered programs.
APPENDIX II
Top 25 Funders of the Arts and Culture, 1 992
Foundation
Amounts
# of grants
1.
Lib Wallace-Readers Digest Fund
$55,810,056
108
2.
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
$29,423,800
76
3.
Pew Charitable Trusts
$18,784,000
105
4.
John D. and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation
$17,423,350
74
5.
Drue Heinz Foundation
$14,861,294
28
6.
Kresge Foundation
$12,550,000
28
7.
Annenberg Foundation
$12,163,315
28
8.
George Gund Foundation
$11,598,471
40
9.
Ford Foundation
$10,960,980
94
10.
Howard Heinz Endowment
$10,419,659
21
11.
Rockefeller Foundation
$10,403,575
161
12.
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
$10,031,882
105
13.
Brown Foundation
$8,754,706
62
14.
Communities Foundation of Texas
$8,637,840
32
15.
Freedom Forum International
$8,367,731
80
16.
Ahmanson Foundation
$7,558,800
59
17.
William Penn Foundation
$7,345,332
45
18.
Frederick P. & Sandra P. Rose Foundation
$6,260,000
5
19.
Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation
$6,109,800
20
20.
Lilly Endowment
$5,904,963
23
21.
Wortham Foundation
$5,753,500
24
22.
Burnett-Tandy Foundation
$5,736,742
15
23.
Robert W. Woodruff Foundation
$5,396,280
4
24.
Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation
$5,332,959
92
25.
Amon G. Carter Foundation
$5,277,395
13
Source: The Foundation Center: Arts Funding Revisited. Based on grants of $10,000 or more awarded to organizations.
Note: These numbers may differ from numbers cited in the text of this report due to differing definitions or reference
to other fiscal years.
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Author's Acknowledgments
Assembling the complex and diverse
material contained in this report in a timely
fashion has been an enormously complicated
undertaking. I was aided by dozens of
scholars, researchers and, program officers
who gave generously of their time and
insights in interviews and in conversations.
Special thanks go to Loren Renz, Virginia
Hodgkinson, Margaret Wyszomirski and
Jamil Zainaldin. Malcolm Richardson
provided characteristically wry but sage
advice. Stanley N. Katz, James Smith, Myrna
Chase, and Ellen McCulloch-Lovell offered
valuable suggestions about the manuscript
itself. Barbara Kovacevic helped enormously
in the preparation of the final report. Harold
Nigel Ramdass served admirably as fact-
checker. I am grateful to Alberta Arthurs for
continuing to believe that humanists can do
anything and that the impossible is possible.
My most heartfelt thanks, however, go to my
husband Peter v.Z. Cobb whose continuing
patience, good cheer, incisive mind, and
expertise in tax policy assure that Alberta is
right. Finally, to my daughter Laura for
showing the same optimism, good humor and
uncommon common sense as her dad, while
pulling together the bibliography.
Tlie President's Committee wishes to thank the author, the Rockefeller Foundation and
the Texaco Foundation for making this publication possible.
President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities
The President's Committee on the Arts and
the Humanities was created by Executive
Order in 1982 to encourage private sector
support and to increase public appreciation of
the value of the arts and the humanities
through its projects, publications and meetings.
The Committee is composed of leading
citizens, appointed by the President from the
private sector, who have an interest in and
commitment to the humanities and the arts.
Its federal members represent thirteen federal
agencies with cultural programs, including the
National Endowments for the Arts and the
Humanities, the Institute of Museum
Services, the Department of Education, the
Smithsonian Institution, the Library of
Congress, the National Gallery of Art, and
the John F. Kennedy Center for the Perform-
ing Arts.
Members of the President's Committee
on the Arts and the Humanities
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Honorary Chair
Private members
John Brademas, Chairman
Peggy Cooper Cafritz,
Vice Chair
Cynthia Perrin Schneider,
Vice Chair
Terry Semel, Vice Chair
Susan Barnes-Gelt
Lerone Bennett, Jr
Madeleine Harris Berman
Curt Bradbury
John H. Bryan
Hilario Candela
Federal Members
Jane Alexander
James H. Billington
Joseph D. Duffey
Diane B. Frankel
Sheldon Hackney
Executive Director
Ellen McCulloch-Lovell
Anne Cox Chambers
Margaret Corbett Daley
Everett Fly
David P. Gardner
Harvey Golub
Richard S. Gurin
Irene Y. Hirano
David Henry Hwang
William Ivey
Quincy Jones
Emily Malino
Robert Menschel
I. Michael Heyman
Roger W. Johnson
Roger Kennedy
Earl A. Powell III
Rita Moreno
Jaroslav Pelikan
Anthony Podesta
Phyllis Rosen
Marvin Sadik
Ann Sheffer
Raymond Smith
Isaac Stern
DaveWarren
Shirley Wilhite
Harold Williams
Richard W. Riley
Leslie Samuels
Timothy E. Wirth
Lawrence Wilker
Notes
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
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